


More than a Rumor

by writerbot5000



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Accidental Relationship, Alex Danvers Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Lena Luthor Knows Kara Danvers Is Supergirl, Multi, Nobody is Secretly Evil, Polyamory, Pseudo-Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-02-09 06:20:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 26,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18632569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writerbot5000/pseuds/writerbot5000
Summary: Kara is thrilled when Alex and Lena start dating and the three of them start hanging out more. At least she is until she overhears her co-workers debating whether Kara is dating Alex or dating Lena. Cue panic, introspection and some surprising revelations.





	1. Just Workplace Gossip

**Author's Note:**

> So I was a bit stuck on another story and I decided to write a quick oneshot. Kara/Lena is my OTP, but I also enjoy stories that pair Lena and Kara with various other women in the Arrowverse. Sam's my favorite third for them, but I thought this might be an interesting idea to explore. I thought it would be no more than 5000 words when I plotted it out. Turns out that was a drastic underestimate. I blame Maggie! LOL
> 
> Mostly canon compliant through season 2, but starts diverging shortly after the finale (though still loosely follows the events of season 3).

When Lena and Alex first started dating, Kara had been ecstatic. Her two favorite people in the entire multiverse finding happiness with each other? What wasn’t too love? Okay, there might have been a tiny voice in the back of Kara’s head that worried that maybe the two women would get so wrapped up in each other that they would forget about her (she still remembered what it had been like when Alex and Maggie first started dating). But there was nobody Kara was more willing to trust Alex’s heart with than Lena and vice versa. So it was easy enough to tell that little voice to just be quiet.

Kara was glad she hadn’t listened to the voice too as the fears it tried to stir up had quickly proved to be unfounded. Of course, there were changes. There were nights that would have been spent with Alex or Lena that she ended up spending on her own while her foster sister and her best friend were out on a date. But it was clear that both women were also going out of their way to still make time for Kara.

Even better, in addition to the normal lunches with Lena and sister nights with Alex, there were now times when all three of them would do stuff together. The group events were tentative and sporadic at first, as all three women navigated the changes in their relationships, but it didn’t take long for group activities to work their way into their regular weekly schedules.

There were still secrets hanging between them though and eventually those secrets did manage to cause some issues. One night, a couple months after the two women had started dating, Alex and Lena came to Kara and confessed that Sam was actually Reign and that they were keeping her contained in a secret L-Corp lab with the aid of some Kryptonite they had managed to create.

In the ensuing argument, Lena had wanted to know why Kara cared so much about the Kryptonite. That’s when Kara blurted out it was because she was Supergirl. Which is definitely not the way she had planned on letting her best friend know about her alter-ego. Kara had been mad at Alex and Lena for creating Kryptonite behind her back, Lena had gotten mad at Kara and Alex for lying about the Supergirl thing. Alex had gotten mad at Kara for just blurting out her secret like that, which then made Lena even angrier because apparently her own girlfriend didn’t think she could be trusted. It had been a big mess.

The four days that followed that night had been absolutely miserable. Normally if she had been fighting with Alex, Lena would have been the one she could confide in; always willing to offer a shoulder to cry on or there with helpful advice. And if she and Lena had been at odds, she would have gone to Alex for advice. Obviously neither of those options were available to the hero in this case.

She had been venting to Winn and James about the situation at what was supposed to be game night when she found out that Alex and Lena were both holing up at their respective jobs, avoiding not just Kara, but each other; bottling up their feelings and trying to pretend everything was fine.

Kara knew how hard it had been for Alex to open herself up again after Maggie. And before Alex Lena hadn’t dated anyone in all the time that Kara had known the CEO. Even though she hadn’t heard either of them say the actual words, she knew they loved each other. But Alex and Lena were also two of the most stubborn people Kara had ever met, and, if left to their own devices, by the time one of them swallowed their pride and reached out to the other, their relationship may have suffered permanent damage. So Kara realized she was going to have to be the one to swallow her own pride and salvage the situation.  

It had taken some of her most persuasive pouting, but in the end, she was able to get both women to agree to come over to Kara’s apartment for dinner so that they could talk things out. The night had involved a lot of painful discussions and more than a few tears all around, but the night ended with a lot of apologies and hugs and a promise to not keep secrets from each other.

That night also marked the first time that all three women had shared a bed. The discussions had dragged on well past midnight. Everyone had been left so emotionally drained that going home to their respective houses had seemed like way too much trouble.

Kara and Alex had shared a bed plenty of times of course, going all the way back to when they were teenagers and Kara would get nightmares of Krypton’s destruction and her time in the Phantom Zone. And Kara knew Alex and Lena had shared a bed since they had started dating, though neither was really the type to give any details on that front.

This was the first time that Lena and Kara had slept in the same bed though. Kara had always offered the bed to Lena anytime that Lena had spent the night at Kara’s place in the past, but the unstated assumption Kara would, in turn, be sleeping on the couch (Not that Kara had ever been opposed to sharing a bed with Lena, but when your best friend doesn’t know that you are an alien or that you sometimes floats in your sleep, it’s generally a good idea not to sleep in the same room). Of course, Lena’s patented Luthor stubbornness meant that Lena had always turned down the bed and insisted that she be the one to take the couch.

That night, it was actually Alex that suggested the three of them share the bed. Even with the opening up all three of them had done that night, Kara had still been surprised when her foster sister admitted that after how hard the last few days had been, she just wanted to cuddle with her two favorite people.

The fight had sucked; there was no question of that. But it also marked a real turning point in their friendship. There was no more need to hide behind lies and half-truths. Kara could come clean about her Supergirl work; Alex could be open about what she was up to at the DEO and Lena didn’t feel the need to hide her research for fear of being judged. Instead she was eager to work with both of them as they tried to find a way to cure Sam.

During the next few weeks, they all worked frantically to find a way to save Sam and the other two Worldkillers. Alex brought in a team of DEO scientists to assist herself and Lena as they worked to find a cure. The two women subsisted pretty much solely on the food that Kara would deliver whenever she was able to take a break from her Supergirl duties. Most nights she wouldn’t be able to convince either woman to leave the L-Corp labs until well after midnight.

When they did finally leave the lab, Kara would fly them to their destination. Sometimes it was Lena’s penthouse or Alex’s apartment, but most nights they had all just gone back to Kara’s apartment and just collapsed on the bed. Between the stress of trying to find a cure for Sam and dealing with whatever alien attacks, rogue metahumans and other threats to National City cropped up on a seemingly weekly basis, the only real break they got was the few hours each night where they slept, cuddled together.

About a month after their fight, Alex and Lena came up with a way to remove the Worldkillers from their quasi-human hosts and lock the evil entities away in some sort of pocket dimension and things were able to get back to normal. Well as normal as things ever get in National City.

Even when things were normal, they were still all busy people, of course. Kara still had a full-time job as a reporter on top of her Supergirl duties; Alex was still second-in-command of the DEO; Lena still had not one, but two, multi-billion dollar companies to oversee. But whenever any two or three of them were were free at the same time, they were usually together.

Perhaps it was because Kara was used to spending so much time with Alex and with Lena before the two women had started dating, but it never really occurred to here that there was anything odd about the fact she spend so much time with her sister and her sister’s girlfriend, just the three of them. Or that her favorite nights were the nights that all three of them just cuddled together on Kara’s couch, laughing at some ridiculous movie on Netflix before moving to Kara’s bed where they would inevitably wake up all snuggled together in one configuration or another. Sure, she was really close to Alex and Lena, but they were her sister and her best friend; it only made sense that they would be close, right?

The superhero was quite happy with the way her life was and the bond she shared with Alex and Lena. And things might have continued the same way for months, or even years, if not for Kara’s super-hearing and a few gossipy employees in the CatCo break room.

It had been a tough morning. Snapper had Kara working on a story about an obscure change to some municipal tax law. From what she had been able to find out, it wasn’t going to actually have much of an impact on anyone’s taxes and it seemed like unless you were an accountant, or you happened to be running a zone-3 business with a class A license there was no reason to care about it. Rao knows why Snapper decided it was worth a half-pager.

Reading over what she had written so far, Kara knew there was no way it would actually make the cut for inclusion in the print paper; it was doubtful whether it would even make it to the website; she could barely focus on the article and she was the one that had written it. Had Snapper just being punishing her for missing out on so many meetings lately?

Desperate for anything to distract her from the dreadful article, her attention jumped to a discussion that was happening in the break room when she heard her name. She tilted her head slightly to better focus her attention on the discussion.

“No way! Everyone knows Danvers is totally dating that redhead that’s always visiting her,” the voice claimed. She thought it might be one of the guys on that covered sports.

“You mean, Alex?”  A second voice, this one definitely belonged to Zoe, one of the junior reporters, asked.

“Yeah, that’s her name,” the first voice confirmed.

“Oh, you poor, deluded man,” Zoe answered, with a wry chuckle. “I don’t know where you get your information but your ‘everyone’ is clearly wrong. Kara’s totally got a thing going with Miss Luthor. I have a cousin that works on the executive floor at L-Corp, and she told me that even before Miss Luthor bought CatCo, Kara was always dropping by to visit Miss Luthor. And it wasn’t just at lunch either.

“One night my cousin forgot a file in her office she needed over the weekend and she went back to the office to get it. It was Friday night, after 10,  and the whole floor was empty, but when she walked past Miss Luthor’s office, she saw the two of them together on the couch in Miss Luthor’s office.”

“Were they doing anything?” A third voice asked. Kara glared when she realized it was Emily from HR. Other reporters gossiping about her love life was bad enough, but HR was getting on it too? Seriously? She considered lowering her glasses so she could see just who else was gossiping about her, but she figured she was already abusing her powers enough by eavesdropping, even her co-workers were being total jerkfaces right now.   

“They weren’t kissing or anything,” Zoe admitted, “But Miss Luthor had her head on Kara’s shoulder.”

“Okay, sure. But friends do that sort of thing,” sports guy countered. “Have you seen the way Kara lights up whenever Alex drops by? She’s always happy, but she gets like extra happy whenever she sees Alex.”

A fourth voice asked, this one she recognized as one of the IT guys, Josh, “Does anyone know who filled her office with flowers that one time?”

“Good point. Anyone know?” Another voice, this one Carena from Finance responded. She was really tempted to take a quick peek into the break room. Just how many people were in there at 10:30 in the morning?

“No,” Emily sighed. “I checked with security and it was delivered through one of our regular courier companies, but the sender was anonymous.”

“Did they log the delivery person?” Zoe asked. “Maybe we could track them down and ask them if they know anything?”

“Seriously?!” Kara was disheartened to hear Eve’s voice. She had grown to consider Eve a friend, and even saw herself as something of a mentor to the assistant (even if Eve was currently splitting her time between works as James assistant and heading up a research project in the L-Corp offices). She had thought Eve wasn’t the kind of friend that would talk about her behind her back like this. “Doesn’t anyone in this office have something better to do than gossip about our co-worker’s love life? Again?” Kara instantly felt bad for her momentary doubt of Eve’s loyalty, but was glad to know she had been wrong.

“Oh, please,” Carena countered. “We all know you have a thing for Miss Luthor.”

“Carena!” A scandalized sounding Eve shouted, before continuing in a quieter but no less firm voice. “Miss Luthor is an amazing boss. Of course, I admire and respect her, and I’m grateful she’s giving me an opportunity to do research at L-Corp, but I want to make it very, very clear that I do not have a thing for her. I’m also smart enough to know that she wouldn’t be very happy if she overheard me gossiping about her love life when I’m supposed to be working. Now if you’ll excuse me, I only came here to get a coffee so I’m going to go do my job now. Something the rest of you might want to think about doing.”

Kara couldn’t help but chuckle at the silence that fell over the other room. Who knew that Eve had it in her?

Now that the conversation about her had ended, Kara tried to go back to work. But she couldn’t stop thinking about what her co-workers were saying about her. People thought she and Lena were dating? And some people apparently thought she was dating Alex?

Less than a minute later, Kara was distracted from her own distraction by the appearance of Eve at her desk. “Here,” the other woman said, setting a cup of coffee on her desk. “I’m guessing you probably need this more than me.”

“Um, thanks,” Kara answered, somewhat confused but nevertheless appreciating the gesture. She took a sip and gave a grateful smile to the assistant and she realized that Eve had her coffee order down (two cream, eight sugars).

Eve looked around, as if making sure there weren’t any other employees nearby, before leaning forward and speaking in a hushed tone. “Just so you know, Carena is way off base about me. Jess and I are very happy together and I have no intention of trying to get between you and Miss Luthor. Not that I would ever think of cheating on Jess, but even if I was the kind of person that would do that, I’d have to be an idiot to try and seduce my girlfriend’s boss. And I’d have to be even stupider to do it when she’s dating a secret agent and a superhero.”

And that’s how Kara found out that not only did Eve know her secret, but that spittakes were apparently a literal thing that could and did happen.

Eve was no superhero, but fortunately the assistant had quick reflexes and she was narrowly able to avoid being hit by spray of coffee.

“What?” Kara asked. “Superhero? How could I be a superhero? You would need to have like, superpowers or something to be a superhero! And I definitely don’t! I only have normal powers just like a regular human. Because I am. Human, that is. That’s me!” Kara deflected.

“Oh, uh, right. Of course,” Eve said, obviously fooled by Kara’s masterful obstufaction. “But,” Eve said, giving another quick look around to confirm they were still alone, “If you were say a little more super than the average girl, I would definitely have your back. I’d never betray a friend’s confidence like that. And Jess would totally kill me if I outed her boss’s girlfriend’s secret identity.”

Eve walked off before Kara could respond, which was probably for the best because Kara had no idea what to say. Apparently Eve and Jess were dating which was nice, but Kara was more focused on the fact that yet another person had figured out her secret identity (Alex was going to kill her). And even her identity being outed again was secondary to finding out that not only did half her office think she was dating Lena or Alex, Eve and Jess, both women she considered to be her friends,  thought she dating both of them. Oh Rao, what a mess!

Needless to say, the rest of Kara’s morning was a complete write-off. To think, just a few minutes earlier she had been desperate for anything to distract her from a dull assignment, but now would give anything to have a terrible article be the biggest issue weighing on her mind.

Looking at the clock, she realized it was almost time for lunch. A lunch she was supposed to be having with Lena at L-Corp. It was originally going to be lunch with Lena and Alex, but apparently someone had tried to hack into the DEO servers the night before. They hadn’t been successful, but Alex was busy coordinating with the team investigating the intrusion attempt and wasn’t able to get away. So it was just going to be Kara and Lena.

Days when all three of them got to meet up for lunch were her favorite, but Kara also loved any chance she had to spend time with Alex or Lena one on one. So on any other day, she would be excited to go have lunch with Lena. And truthfully, she was still looking forward to it, but she was also worried that she would be awkward after what she had heard. And if Lena picked up on her awkwardness and asked her about it, she wasn’t sure how effectively she’d be able to lie; Lena was always able to see through her (though not in the cool superpowers way).

Kara even briefly considered coming up with an excuse to cancel out on their lunch. She couldn’t really fake a Supergirl emergency because if Lena mentioned it to Alex, then Alex would know she had lied to Lena and then it would be even more awkward. She could have said she was busy working on her article or following up on a story. While Lena was technically the CEO of CatCo, she didn’t usually get involved with day to day stuff, and only made rare appearances in the office after her first couple months as CEO, so Lena would never question her on it if she used work as an excuse. Ultimately though, the reporter decided she wasn’t about to miss a meal with one of her two favorite people just because her co-workers had come up with some crazy theories about them. Why she should she or Lena have to suffer because of what other people thought?

A few minutes, and a quick stop at Belly Burger, later and Kara was riding up an elevator at L-Corp, on her way to Lena’s office. As the floors ticked by she gave herself a silent little pep talk. “Okay, Kara. You can do this. Today’s just been like any other day. You definitely didn’t find out that all your co-workers seem to think you are dating your best friend. Or your sister. Or both of them. Nope. It’s been a perfectly normal day and now you are going to have a perfectly normal lunch.”

Her resolve stiffened, Kara confidently strode up to Jess’ desk. “Hey, Jess,” she greeted.

“Hey, Kara,” Jess returned, greeting her with a warm smile. “Thanks for not like, throwing my girlfriend into the sun this morning.”

It made sense that if Eve knew that Kara was Supergirl, then her girlfriend would too. So Kara didn’t even bother trying to deny it. “I would never throw someone into the sun,” she went with instead.

Laughing, the assistant responded, “I know. Eve was terrified that you would be mad at her when that bitch Carena accused her of having a thing for Miss Luthor. Thank you for calming her down. She can kind of jump to the worst case scenario sometimes.”

“I know Eve would never do something like that,” Kara reassured. “She’s a good person.”

“The best,” Jess agreed, beaming as she talked about her girlfriend. And wow, Kara did not think she had ever seen Jess beam before. She and Eve must really be good together.

“Is Lena available?” Kara asked. “Er, not available as in is she single, I know she’s not single. I mean available as in is she free for lunch,” Kara stammered. Apparently her resolve hadn’t been bolstered quiet as much as she thought.

“You know she’s always available for you, Kara,” Jess teased. “But she’s also free for lunch. Her last conference call ended twenty minutes ago.”

Kara very much did not blush under Jess’s teasing, thank you very much. Tugging on her shirt, the reporter did her best to confidently stride into the CEO’s office. Kara felt the smile on her face bloom as she spotted her best friend, hunched over her desk, working away.

“Knock, knock!” Kara said, tapping lightly on the wall by the door.

“Kara!” Lena exclaimed, a smile appearing on her own face. “I’m glad you could make it.”

Lena rose from her desk and the two women met in front of the couch in Lena’s office, exchanging a quick peck on the lips before sitting down to eat.

It wasn’t until Kara was seated on the couch, handing Lena her weird veggie burger, that it occurred to Kara what she had just kissed Lena. Lena didn’t seem to notice anything was amiss; she was already unwrapping her burger while launching into a story about something that happened in one of the labs earlier that day.

Kara realized that the reason Lena wasn’t acting like anything unusual had happened was because that quick kiss in greeting was routine for them. Kara hadn’t even needed to think about what she was doing when she approached Lena; it had been an automatic thing; that’s just how they greeted each other. When did they start greeting each other like that? Kara couldn’t remember when it had started, but now that she was thinking about it, she realized that she and Alex had been doing the same thing as well.

That was just something that close friends did though, right? Certainly not on Krypton, but it was normal for humans to greet their close friends with a kiss, right? Had she ever kissed any of her other friends as a form of greeting? She couldn’t remember doing so. Then again, she was closer to Lena and Alex than she was with any of her other friends, so that must be why she kissed them and didn’t kiss her other friends like Winn or Maggie.

“Kara?” Lena said as she waved a hand in front of the hero’s face.

Kara jumped, startled that Lena was suddenly much closer than she remembered. “Huh?”

“Are you okay, darling?” Lena said, now placing the back of her hand on Kara’s forehead apparently checking for a fever. “You were kind of just staring off into space. Is there a Supergirl situation?”

“Oh, uh, sorry,” Kara said, flustered. “No, no Supergirl problems right now. I was just a little distracted. It— It was a tough morning at work.”

“Snapper got you on some big story?” Lena offered.

“Not so much a big story as an incredibly boring one,” Kara answered. She proceeded to tell Lena about her troubles staying focused on such a meaningless story and her theory that Snapper was punishing her about something. She very much did not make any mention of any conversations she had overheard or any of the thoughts that were now buzzing around her head as a result.

“I’m not sure why James insists on keeping that dour little man on as senior editor,” Lena said with a frown.

“He’s not so bad when you get to know him,” Kara defended. When her response was only met by a disbelieving stare, she relented, “Okay, fine. He is pretty terrible. But he knows what it takes to put a good paper together.”

Thankfully, Lena seemed to buy Kara’s explanation for why she had been distracted and they moved on to other topics. For the first few minutes, Kara still felt awkward; like she was trying to act like this was just another normal lunch rather than it actually being just another normal lunch with her best friend. But it didn’t take long for Kara to get caught up Lena’s discussion of a new project she was working and the next thing she knew, everything felt like it was back to normal.

Or it was until Kara realized that her gaze kept drifting down to Lena’s lips, especially when the CEO would nibble at her lower lip whenever she got caught up in whatever Kara was saying. Towards the end of their lunch, Kara slipped off her cardigan in order to better re-enact a move she had used to subdue two rogue Infernians at once and she could have sworn Lena had been checking out her now bare arms. Could Lena actually be in to her?

Instead of flying like back to CatCo like she normally would, Kara took the time to walk, hoping it would give her a chance to clear her head. As she walked she found herself going over moments from the past few months. She kept thinking about moments between herself and Lena, herself and Alex and moments the three of them had shared; she found herself questioning the meaning of almost every interaction. Could there actually be something there?

As she got back to her office, Kara decided she was overthinking and seeing things that weren’t there. She had made that mistake once before and the result had been devastating. She wasn’t going to make that mistake again, especially not when it could ruin her relationships with the two women she loved. Loved as friends. In a totally platonic way.

To her own surprise, Kara’s afternoon turned out to be more productive than her morning had been, but that was only because there was a bank robbery and a small warehouse fire for Supergirl to handle. She was actually able to push thoughts of Lena and Alex out of her head, if only briefly, as she focused on her superhero duties.

But as soon as she was back at her desk, staring at that damned tax code article, her thoughts would inevitably drift towards how it felt to have Alex astride her after their last sparring session, muscles glistening as she had Kara pinned to the ground. Or how nice it felt to cuddle up with Lena while they binged cooking shows on Netflix. Or the way Alex and Lena had smiled at her when she surprised them with donuts from that little bistro in New York.

For once, Kara was relieved when Alex and Lena both mentioned they were going to have to work late in the group chat the three of them shared. Alex was still busy dealing with the fallout from the failed hacking attempt on the DEO servers. As for Lena, the L-Corp board was apparently kicking up a fuss about her latest refusal to partner with the government on some military project and she was probably going to be stuck at work even later than Alex.  

Deciding that she needed an outsider’s perspective, Kara went through her metal rolodex to figure out someone who could help her put these silly thoughts to rest. To tell her that her co-workers were reading too much into things and Kara shouldn’t let what they said get to her.

Obviously Lena and Alex were out of the question. And there was no way she was going to talk to Eliza about this. Talking to J’onn about it would be almost as uncomfortable as talking to Eliza. James had gotten a lot better, but he was still kind of stand-offish about Lena so he wouldn’t be a good choice. Winn would just get super flustered if she brought it up, so he’d be no good either.

Sam would have been an ideal choice. After Alex and Lena, she was probably Kara’s best friend. And Sam had a refreshingly direct nature; she wouldn’t hesitate to tell Kara the truth. But Sam and Ruby had gone on an extended holiday after the whole Reign thing and she wouldn’t be back in National City for at least a couple more weeks.

When she thought about it, there was only one friend that could help her in a situation like this, Maggie Sawyer. Rao knew why, but somehow the least awkward person to talk to about this was none other than her sister’s ex-fiance. She knew Maggie would help her, no matter how awkward the situation.

Things had been pretty tense between Maggie and the rest of the Superfriends after Alex and Maggie broke up, just weeks after their engagement. But it wasn’t Maggie’s fault she didn’t want to have kids. Alex actually been the one to insist that Kara keep up her friendship with Maggie, not wanting Maggie to lose her friends just because she and Alex were no longer a couple. There was no question that Kara would be there for Alex, but Alex wanted to make sure that Kara would be there for her ex as well.    

To that end, Kara invited Maggie to have lunch at her apartment a few days after the couple broke up. That lunch, as uncomfortable as it had been for both women, had affirmed that they were still friends. Kara managed to convince Maggie that just because Kara would always have Alex’s back didn’t mean she couldn’t have Maggie’s back too. It had been a pretty emotional lunch for both of them. Maggie still distraught over losing Alex and Kara torn up about the pain both Alex and Maggie were suffering, but it had ended with a hug and a firm commitment that they were still family, no matter what.  

Those first few weeks after the break-up, Kara made a point to drag Maggie out to lunch every Thursday. She had been going through her own painful break-up with Mon El and she figured Maggie probably had the same urge to pull away from everyone that she did. They had a really nice talk during one of those early lunches, resolving to do what they could to support each other, making sure neither of them gave into that urge to shut everyone out.  

As more time passed, Maggie slowly started coming back to game nights and group outings, and eventually she and Alex were even able to start spending time together as friends, playing pool at the alien bar, or hitting the shooting range. The group dynamics had to shift a bit to accommodate the end of Maggie and Alex’s romantic relationship, but shift it did and eventually they all found a happy new equilibrium.

Months later, around the time that Lena and Alex first started getting closer (after Kara had drafted her foster sister into helping clear Lena’s name when Morgan Edge tried to frame her for poisoning a bunch of kids), everyone was surprised when Maggie nervously told her friends that she and Vasquez were dating (because apparently none of them were able to date outside of their friend group anymore). Kara definitely hadn’t seen that one coming, but the two women were perfect for each other. Kara hadn’t even been aware Vasquez could smile, but whenever those two were together, she saw this whole other side of the agent.

It was because Alex and Maggie had a solid friendship now and Maggie was so clearly in love with Susan Vasquez that Kara felt comfortable talking to Maggie about her own situation. Okay, well, comfortable was a bit of an overstatement, but the awkwardness was from Kara having to try and talk to anyone about what she had heard and how confused she was feeling; it wasn’t because Maggie and Alex had been engaged less than a year ago.

Thankfully when Kara texted Maggie about meeting up for supper, the detective was just getting off work. Apparently Vasquez was busy with the same mess Alex was dealing with at the DEO so Maggie’s evening was unexpectedly free.

Kara had thought about inviting Maggie to the alien bar; she could use some liquid courage for the conversation they were about to have. But a lot of people knew her at the bar and she didn’t really want anyone else to overhear about how she was confused about her feelings towards her own sister (foster sister, she reminded herself) and her sister’s girlfriend. So instead Kara invited her friend over to come over to her place.

It was a simple plan, but a good one. However once Maggie actually showed up, Kara found herself unsure of how to actually talk to her friend about what was bothering her. So she busied herself with eating dinner. That was something she knew how to do.

Maggie had definitely picked up on Kara’s need to talk though as they had no sooner finished dessert (okay, well second dessert in Kara’s case) when the detective sighed and said, “Okay, spill, Little Danvers.”

The first instinct Kara had was to deny there was anything to spill. If she didn’t tell anyone what was bothering her, then was something really bothering her? But she knew that this was something she needed to talk to someone about. And if she didn’t do it now, it would be at least another day, if not longer, before she had another chance to talk to her friend about it. And that was another twenty-four hours where Alex or Lena might figure out she’s acting weird around them. No, she had to talk to Maggie now.

But maybe some ice cream would make the conversation a little easier, Kara thought, going to the freezer and pulling out a container of good ice cream and the smaller tub of the gross vegan ice cream she allowed to take up valuable freezer space because it was Maggie’s favorite.

Picking up on Kara’s actions, Maggie was already pulling a couple of spoons out of the dinnerware drawer. “It’s going to be one of those conversations, is it?” At Kara’s small nod, Maggie took the offered tub of ice cream from Kara’s hand and the two women situated themselves on either end of Kara’s sofa.

It took a few bites of Rocky Road before Kara found her voice. “It’s not a big deal, really. It’s just that at work today… I heard people talking about me… And Lena… And Alex. About our… relationship.”

For some reason, Maggie’s face lit up at this. “Oh my god, did it happen?” The detective asked, leaning forward in excitement, “You’re finally together?”

It was a good thing Kara wasn’t drinking anything this time or she would have had her second spit take of the day. As it was, her jaw just dropped. What in the world was Maggie talking about? Unable to make a coherent response, she settled for sputtering.

“It’s okay, Kara,” Maggie attempted to reassure. “I’m not going to judge. I’ve known how you felt about each other for a long time now.” Apparently Maggie sucked at being reassuring. “Well, only for the last few months for you and Lena, but with you and Alex, I think I’ve always known.”

When Kara was finally able to manage a response, all she could get out is, “What!?”

Maggie tilted her head slightly, seemingly trying to puzzle something out. “You are trying to tell me that you, Lena and Alex are dating, right?”

“No!” Kara said, jumping to her feet, clutching her ice cream carton to her chest. “Why would you think that?” First Eve thought she was dating Alex and Lena and now Maggie? Eve thinking it was weird enough, but it wasn’t like Eve spent a lot of time around the three of them. Maggie did though; she was close with all of them. Why would she think that?

“You just said that people at work were talking about your relationship with Lena and Alex,” Maggie explained.

“Yeah, but not like that!” Kara responded, pacing around the room. “I overheard some people at work. They were debating if I was dating Lena or if I was dating Alex. And Eve apparently thinks I’m dating them both, but I’m very much not! Alex is my sister!”

“Foster sister,” Maggie corrected, before reaching an arm out towards Kara. “Come on. Sit back down.”

Kara flopped back down to her side of the couch. “I just don’t understand why everyone suddenly seems to think we’re dating,” Kara pouted, focusing on her spoon and digging into her ice cream. “The worst part was when I met up with Lena for lunch today, I was all constantly questioning every little action. And I couldn’t stop staring at Lena’s lips. Oh, and also apparently Lena and Alex and I all kiss each other hello now. What’s up with that?’”

Maggie raised an eyebrow at this. “You kissed them?”

“Not like a kiss kiss,” Kara defended, trying to keep Maggie from getting the wrong idea. “It is just like a ‘hi, good to see you,’ kiss. Just a quick peck on the lips. It’s something we’ve been doing for a while now, but it’s just how we say hello. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“So it’s purely a platonic thing?”

Kara nodded, glad that Maggie understood. “Yes, exactly. It’s just our way of saying that we’re happy to see each other.”

“And you weren’t happy to see me tonight?” Maggie asked, a teasing note in her voice.

“Of course I was!” Kara protested. “You know you’re like a sister to me.”

“And yet I don’t seem to recall getting one of these ‘hello’ kisses when I came in tonight,” Maggie said. “Apparently I’m only good enough for a hug.”

“That’s—” Kara stammered. “That’s just how we’ve always greeted. Just because I greet Lena and Alex differently doesn’t mean I’m having secret fantasies about them or something.”

“Okay, fine,” Maggie said with a smirk. “Then kiss me.”

“What?”

“Kiss me. Give me one of these quick greeting kisses that don’t actually mean anything.”

“Fine,” Kara huffed, “I will.”

“Go for it then,” Maggie gestured, still sporting that infuriating smirk.

Maggie had stopped smirking in order to pucker her lips, but her eyes were still full of mirth as if she knew there was no way Kara would be able to do it. Kara leaned forward, all set to prove to Maggie that it didn’t mean anything. Their faces were only a couple inches apart when Kara’s stomach was filled with butterflies, but like angry, heavy butterflies. A kiss greeting was Kara and Alex and Lena’s special thing, darn it! It felt wrong to share that with someone else, even someone she really cared about like Maggie.

Sighing, Kara collapsed back onto the sofa. “I can’t do it.”

“Probably for the best. Vas would have killed me if she found out you kissed me because I dared you to.” Maggie’s eyes widened in realization. “Um, can you do me a favor and not tell her that I dared you to kiss me? I only did it because I was sure you wouldn’t go through with it, but I’d rather not spend a week sleeping on the couch.”

“But it wouldn’t have been like a kiss kiss,” Kara insisted, still clinging to the idea that the kisses she was sharing were platonic. “It’s our way of showing each other that we’re glad to see each other. It’s nothing like we would kiss if we were having a proper kiss; believe me I know what a proper kiss from Alex feels like.” Kara nodded smuggly, confident she had made her point.   

Maggie raised an eyebrow at this. “And how would you know how what a ‘proper kiss’ from Alex feels like?”

Oh, crap. Kara had been so set on proving the kisses were nothing that she hadn’t realized that Maggie would obviously ask a follow-up question to that claim. But Maggie was here to help her, so Kara decided to explain what she meant. “Um, we sort of, uh, practiced when we were younger.”

The way Maggie’s face lit up with excitement at this fact let Kara know that this was something that she was probably going to be getting teased about for a long time. “No way! You two seriously went through the whole ‘practice kissing’ trope?” Maggie cackled. “Let me guess, Alex was nervous about her first date and you offered to help her prepare?”

“Maggie,” Kara whined, “Can you like not make fun of me about this? Please? This is hard enough to talk about without you teasing me.”

“It’s such a cliche though! I’ll be honest; there’s no way I’ll be able to resist teasing you about this. But,” Maggie sighed, as if making a great sacrifice, “I promise not to tease you about it anymore until you and Alex sort your shit out, okay?”

There was no way Maggie wasn’t going to tease her, so Kara supposed this was probably the best she could hope for. “Fine,” she huffed.

“But, since I’m being such a great friend and not making any comments about it, you have to tell me what actually happened,” Maggie insisted.

“And you don’t just want to get more information so you can tease and Alex about it later?” Kara asked.

“Oh, I am absolutely going to tease you both about this in the future. Like so much!” Maggie smirked before her look turned more plainative. “But you need to work out how you feel first. Believe me, I know useless lesbians and I’m guessing that this will be a pretty big piece of the puzzle you need to solve.”

“Excuse me! I’m a useless pansexual!” Kara defended. As much as Kara had done her best to forget about what had happened between her and Alex that summer over the past decade, she realized Maggie was probably right.

Gathering her courage, and swapping out her Rocky Road for Chocolate Mint Chip, Kara spoke. “It wasn’t about a first date, or a first kiss even. During my senior prom, I broke my date, Jeremy Riess’s nose.”

“Was he getting handsy?” Maggie asked.

“No, it was nothing like that,” Kara explained. “Jeremy was a sweet kid and the perfect gentleman. At the end of the night, I tried to give him a good night kiss. I miscalculated and well, when I miscalculate people can get hurt.” Even now, years later, she still felt herself tearing up the memory. Poor Jeremy’s tuxedo covered in blood as he was crying on the floor of the gymnasium.

“Shit, Kar. I never realized,” Maggie said, putting a comforting hand on her friend’s shoulder. “I mean I know you had trouble with your powers when you first got to Earth, but I never realized it was that bad.”

“It was. The first few months I was scared to touch anyone. Since I was too scared to touch anyone else, Alex would touch me instead.” Kara felt her face flush as she realized what that sounded like. She pointed a finger at Maggie, “Remember, no jokes. You know I didn’t mean it like that. At first she would just hold me when I was feeling overwhelmed. Eventually, as I grew more confident in my control, we started with handshakes and worked our way up to cuddling and then hugging.”

“Sounds like she really helped you,” Maggie said softly.

“Yeah, I don’t know what I would have done without her. Or Streaky, the stray cat I took in. For the longest time, I was still having trouble with not breaking glasses or pulling doors off their hinges, but with Alex, it was always so much easier.  

“She taught me so much about controlling my powers those first few months. But we never went over kissing. Not until Jeremy Riess. That was actually the third time I had broken someone’s nose when I tried to kiss them. I felt so guilty,” Kara said, pulling her legs up under her on the couch. She still sometimes had nightmares about those early attempts at intimacy.  

“Alex found me in our room, curled up in a little ball on my bed and just sobbing. She asked what happened and I told her the whole story. I told her that I was done with all of it; I was never going to kiss another human as long as I lived. It was just too dangerous.”

That night, she just kept hearing the wet, sickening crunch as Jeremy’s nose had broken. It was the exact same thing that had happened when Mick Trulli had tried to kiss her at the end of her very first date. And when she had finally gotten to kiss her first crush, Holly Fett, during a game of truth or dare. Every time she tried to be intimate with someone she hurt them. She had decided was done with it; she couldn’t risk hurting someone else ever again.  

“If Alex hadn’t been home from college on summer break, I might have actually kept that vow. At least for a while. She told me that I just needed to practice. That kissing was just like all the other things I had to get used to when I first came to Earth. I told her I wasn’t going to risk hurting someone else just so I could get practice.”

“And that’s when she offered to practice with you?” Maggie prodded gently.

“Yeah,” Kara nodded. “I flat-out refused. Even if practice would help me, there was no way I was going to put Alex into that situation. It wasn’t like Jeremy was the first person I’d hurt in a kiss. I wouldn't have been able to live with myself if I had hurt Alex,” she trailed off for a moment, thinking about the time she had done just that while under the influence of red Kryptonite. Even though she eventually accepted that hadn’t been her fault, to this day, it was one of her most common recurring nightmares. Then there was the time Alex had gotten hurt when Kara had saved a woman and her baby from a car crash, though at least in that case she hadn’t physically hurt Alex herself. Shaking her head, she forced her thoughts away from those painful memories and back to the ones she was supposed to be talking about. “I told Alex it was just too risky.”

Maggie snorted a laugh. “There’s no way that Danvers let you get away with that.”

Shaking her head fondly at the memory, Kara agreed. “Of course not. She pointed out that I’d never hurt her before. Not with all our practice handshakes, cuddling or hugging and she trusted that I wouldn’t hurt her if practiced kissing. She promised we’d go slow and she’d help me be careful to make sure she didn’t get hurt.” Reflecting back on it now, Kara was sure Alex would have happily endured multiple broken noses if she thought she could help Kara (she had certainly put herself in harm’s way often enough since Kara became Supergirl).

“I was super hesitant at first, of course, but when I kissed Alex, it wasn’t like when I kissed Jeremy or Holly, or when Mick tried to kiss me. Normally when I kiss a human, it’s hard to really enjoy it; I’m so focused on making sure I don’t use too much pressure or get too carried away because if I lose focus for even an instant, I can cause serious injury. Doesn’t exactly leave a lot of room for getting lost in the kiss. But somehow, with Alex, it was just so natural. It always has been with Alex. Whenever I shake hands with someone, or hug someone, or have any sort of physical interaction, even people like you that I am really close with, I always have to consciously be careful of what I’m doing. But with Alex… with Alex, it’s just instinct. I don’t need to think about it. Lena’s the only other person I’ve had that with.”

Realizing that what she had just said could be misinterpreted, Kara hastily added, “Not that I’ve kissed Lena! I mean, when we cuddle up on the couch, or when I hold her in my arms, I don’t have that fear that I might hurt her. I definitely haven’t kissed Lena! Okay, well, I have, but just those quick pecks on the lips that I told you about earlier. No like open mouth kissing or tongues or anything!”

 “So what you’re saying is that there was tongue with you and Alex?” Maggie asked, just a hint of teasing tone entering her tone.

“Not that first night,” Kara defended.

“Just how many ‘practice sessions’ did the two of you have?” Maggie asked.

“I’m getting there,” Kara answered. “Our first few kisses were super tentative, really it was just her kissing me while I held very, very still. Even though felt safe hugging Alex or holding her hand and things like that, I was still terrified that if I tried to kiss her, she’d end up just like the others. Once I did actually start to kiss her back though…” Kara trailed off, a goofy smile on her face as she vividly remembered that night. She could almost taste the vanilla chapstick Alex had favored back then.  

“There’s nothing quite like that first kiss with someone special,” Maggie agreed.

“That first night we just kissed for a few minutes. When it started getting more… heated, we stopped. Then instead of talking about it, we just watched some TV and went to bed like it was any other night.”

“But things were different, right?”

“Kind of,” Kara answered hesitantly, unsure how to put everything into words. “We were already very cuddly. I often slept in Alex’s bed and we’d cuddle on the couch when watching movies and things like that. But after that night, if it was just the two of us, we started sharing kisses too. It didn't take long until we were constantly sneaking off together to make out. And we did more than just kiss.”

Realizing an instant too late where Maggie’s mind would go with that comment, Kara hastened to add, “We didn’t have sex! Sure, things got pretty intense, and there may have been some nudity involved, but I was still a virgin back then and I didn’t want my first time to be when we were practicing.” Not that her actual first time, with Karl Higbee during her second year of college, had ended up being very special. Would have been better to lose her virginity practicing with someone who really loved her, then to some guy who turned out to only be interested in getting her pants and ditched her the next day.   

“Even though we kept saying it was all just practice, it definitely didn’t feel that way. When I said we weren’t just kissing, what I meant was that we like go out to dinner at a nice restaurant, go for long walks on the beach, I’d take her flying at night, and things like that. It started to feel like we were dating for real.” Kara could feel herself tearing up as she thought about how that summer had ended. “But it was all just Alex doing something to help me; it wasn’t anything real.”

“Are you sure?” Maggie gently asked. “Cause it definitely sounds like you two were dating.”

Kara shook her head sadly. It had all been in her head. “A few days before I started college and Alex went back to school, Eliza was out of town for the week. I planned a romantic night in for the two of us. I was going to ask Alex to be my girlfriend.

“I put my years of watching romantic comedies to use. There were candles, flowers and soft music. I even managed to make a halfway decent spaghetti carbonara after a few attempts.”

When Kara trailed off for a few moments, Maggie asked quietly, voice full of understanding “But she turned you down?”

Kara shook her head. “I never even got a chance to ask her. Alex seemed so happy when I surprised her. She would have denied it but her eyes were misting up and she wrapped me in a tight hug and gave me a big kiss when she saw what I did. The dinner was really nice and we were making out a bit while I was working up the courage to ask Alex to be my girlfriend when Eliza walked in on us.”

“Oh shit!” Maggie breathed, her eyes wide.

“Yeah, oh shit is right” Kara sighed, eyes downcast. “Apparently her work trip ended a couple days early. Ordinarily I would have heard her car pulling into the driveway, but I was, uh, a little distracted. Eliza totally flipped out when she saw us. Said that Alex was disgusting and accused her of taking advantage of her little sister. I tried to protest, but Eliza told me to go to my room and that she’d talk to me later. I wanted to stand right there and tell Eliza how wrong she was, but Alex insisted I go too, so I did.”

Kara had gone up to her room, sat in her bed and just kind leaned up against the headboard, hugging herself as tears streamed down her face. “Of course, just because I left the room didn’t mean I couldn’t hear every word they were saying. They were both shouting so even without my powers, it would have been impossible to hear everything. Eliza was yelling at Alex, saying that Alex was supposed to be looking after me, not trying to corrupt me; that I was too naive to know what we were doing was… was wrong.”

Kara sniffed, the painful memories getting to her, but she pressed on. “And Alex. Alex told her all about Jeremy, and Holly and Mick. She said that I had been worried about hurting people and so she had offered to help me practice. That she was just trying to stop me from hurting anyone else.”

“Oh, Kara,” Maggie said. “You know, just because Alex told her mom that—”

Kara knew exactly where Maggie was going and cut her off. “I know. I told myself the same thing. I told myself it was just Alex trying to protect me again. She didn’t want Eliza to try and tear us apart so she was just trying to downplay what we had. And technically the whole thing had started as practice. When Eliza came to talk to me after she had finished yelling at Alex, I even backed up Alex’s story, figuring I was just following Alex’s lead; I confirmed that Alex was just helping me so I wouldn’t hurt anyone. That she hadn’t done anything wrong. Eliza apparently believed me as she even said she was going to apologize to Alex for jumping to conclusions, but that we couldn’t carry on like we had or else people might get the wrong idea.” Kara had wanted to argue that Alex was the greatest thing that had ever happened to her and ask how being with the person she loved could possibly be wrong, but Alex always seemed to know best when dealing with other humans so teenage Kara had opted to follow her sister’s example and just play meek.

“I knew Eliza catching us was going to make things more complicated for us, but I figured there was nothing we couldn’t face if we faced it together, you know?” Kara punctuated her question with some more sniffling as she wiped away tears that were beginning to run down her face.

“Oh, Kar,” Maggie sighed. “Come here.” The detective held out her arm so that Kara could lean against her as she continued her story. “If this is too hard to talk about, we can just stop.”

“No,” Kara said, shaking her head. “I think you were right before. I need to talk about this.”

“If you are sure…”

Kara gave a slight nod before continuing. “Back in Midvale, Alex and I shared a bedroom. I half expected Eliza to insist one of us sleep on the couch or something after what had happened, but I guess she really believed our story because she never even suggested separating us. Which was both amazing and super awkward at the moment. It was a little too early to go to sleep, and Eliza was still wandering around the house so I decided I was going to wait until Eliza fell asleep before I tried to talk to Alex about what had happened. We were both just lying on our respective beds, not saying anything; not even looking at each other.”

Kara had wanted nothing more than to crawl into Alex’s bed and hold or be held by the other woman. Even though that was something Kara commonly did even before they had started fooling around, she was worried that Eliza might start getting suspicious of them if she did so now. Especially because she knew she would really want to kiss the redhead if they were in each other’s arms right now. So she had grabbed a book off the shelf and did her best to at least pretend she was reading while she waiting until Eliza went to bed for the night.

“Once I knew that Eliza was asleep, I tried to talk to Alex. I was going to tell her I didn’t care what Eliza said, that what we had was real and all that mattered was what we thought about it. But Alex wouldn’t talk to me. She just lay in her bed and pretended to be asleep. I knew she wasn’t really asleep because I can hear the difference, and I knew she knew that too, but she pretended to be asleep anyway.”

The hero sighed, reliving the frustration she had felt at that moment, “I hated leaving things the way they were, but I figured Alex needed some time to process I would just talk to her in the morning. I couldn’t sleep though so I went for a flight.

“I didn’t have a destination; I just kept flying. I must have flown thousands of miles before returning home just before dawn. When I got back, her bed was empty. At first I thought she had gone for a walk, or maybe gone surfing or something, but then I saw an envelope sticking out from under my pillow.” Kara’s heart had sunk when she saw the envelope. Alex wasn’t there and there was a letter in her place; Kara had seen enough movies and TV shows to know she wasn’t going to like whatever was in that letter.  

“Apparently as soon as I left, Alex started packing her stuff. She ended up driving back to college in the middle of the night. It’s Alex so of course she took all the blame for our ‘situation.’ She apologized for letting things ‘get out of hand’ with our ‘practice sessions.’ Said that it would be best for both of us if we just pretended none of it had happened.”

“And did you?” Maggie asked.

“She called home a couple days later, just before I was heading to college myself. I tried to get her to talk about it, but she begged me not to. So I didn’t. So I did the only thing I could. I did my best to put it out of my head.” It had helped that she had moving to a whole new school to distract her; still those first couple months had been awfully mopey. She told everyone she was homesick, and it was true; nobody knew that Alex was her home. “Eventually I managed to just kind pushed it out of my mind. Alex and I never talked about it. When we came home for Christmas, Alex acted like nothing had changed and that was it. I don’t know if she ever told anyone about what happened, but this is the first time I’ve ever talked about it with anyone.”

“Jesus,” Maggie breathed, “No offense, but Eliza’s kind of a bitch. Better than my parents, sure, but she still totally messed up Alex. No wonder Alex took so long to figure out her sexuality. The one time she lets herself feel something and her mom lays into her with the yelling and the guilt tripping.”

“I hate how Eliza can be with Alex too,” Kara admitted. “But Eliza catching us was probably for the best. It stopped me from ruining my relationship with Alex by revealing I had feelings for her.”

“Okay, obviously I wasn’t there,” Maggie responded, “And I know what Danvers told you in her letter, but I happen to know her pretty darn well and I think Eliza probably freaked her out and she got scared. It happens.”

“How can you be so sure?” Kara asked. She trusted Maggie’s opinion. Heck, that was the whole reason they were having this conversation, but Kara knew how far Alex would go to protect her. And she knew that was all their summer had been to her foster sister.  

“I’m sure because I’ve seen how Alex looks at you,” Maggie responded. “It’s, uh, it’s actually how I figured out you were Supergirl.”

Sitting up so she could properly face Maggie, Kara questioned, “I thought you said that it was because my disguise wasn’t good enough?”

Maggie sighed. “Okay, kid, I’ve never told anyone this, not even Alex. But I think you need to hear it. For both your sake and Alex’s. But first, I’m going to need to switch out this ice cream for a beer.”

The detective got off the couch long enough to fetch a beer from the fridge. She popped the top off the bottle and sat back down before continuing. “Remember when Alex first confessed her feelings to me and I rejected her?”

“Of course, I remember,” Kara answered. Alex had been utterly crushed when Maggie rejected her; ready to crawl back into the closet and forget about her feelings. It had been hard to warm up to Maggie even after she and Alex had finally gotten together; whenever she saw the detective she had to repress the urge to yell at the woman that had caused Alex so much pain (being the person to arrest Lena when she had been framed for helping Lillian escape certainly hadn’t done anything to endear the officer to the superhero either).

“I told her that I didn’t like to get into relationships with women who were new to the whole being gay thing. And that was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth,” Maggie admitted. “I really liked Alex; if that had been the only obstacle, we would have gotten together sooner.”

Maggie took a swig of her beer before continuing, “I saw how she was around you, well, around Supergirl. It was clear she didn’t see it herself, but I knew it was only a matter of time until she realized she was in love with you. And I thought Supergirl clearly returned those feelings. I didn’t want to let myself fall her if she was just going to leave me when she realized I wasn’t the one that held her heart.”

Kara was stunned. She had been so angry at Maggie for hurting Alex and in a way, it was Kara’s fault. “But you never said anything,” Kara protested.

“It wasn’t my place; I knew she would figure it out on her own, sooner or later,” Maggie explained. “But then one day, Alex introduced me to her sister, Kara. She looked at Supergirl the same way she looked at you, and you looked at her just the way Supergirl did. That’s how I figured out that Kara Danvers and Supergirl were one and the same.”

Maggie chuckled. “I was so happy when I figured it out. I was sure I had misinterpreted the relationship between Alex and Supergirl; that you were acting like sisters rather than two people hopelessly in love with each other. By time I realized I had been right the first time, it was too late; I had already fallen for her.”

A look of horror came over Kara’s face as an idea dawned on her, “Wait, you didn’t break up with Alex because of me, did you?” Her stomach clenched at the idea that she might have inflicted that on Alex.

“Relax, Little Danvers,” Maggie was quick to reassure. “That had nothing to do with you. I knew that Alex was in love with you, and that one day she would realize it, but she was in love with me too. We should have talked about it sooner, but I thought it was better to wait until the two of you figured out what you felt; I didn’t realize you had all this trauma keeping you from addressing your feelings.”

Maggie heaved a sigh, “We were in a good place, but neither of us had started talking about marriage yet so I thought I had time to wait. And then we got caught up in a moment after the Daxamite invasion and the next thing I knew we were engaged. That’s when I realized I was going to have to be the one to bring up her feelings for you. I didn’t want us to get married without addressing it.

“I’m honestly not sure what would have happened if we had actually gotten the chance to talk about it. Who knows, maybe the three of us would have ended up together.” With a shrug, Maggie added, “In another life, I think we could have made a pretty great team,” Maggie said, voice just a little wistful.

“So if Alex’s feelings for me didn’t have anything to do with it…”

“It was exactly what we said it was; the whole kids thing. We were talking about our plans for the future. What we wanted to do with the rest of our lives and stuff like that. I actually started the conversation planning to segue from it to talking about how she felt about it you.

“We were talking about what kind of house we wanted, and she mentioned wanting a big house so we’d have lots of space for our kids.” Maggie shook her head, “Here I was all, all prepared to deal with the whole my fiance is in love with her foster sister thing, and I’m totally blindsided by the far more common issue; she wanted kids and I didn’t.” The brunette chuckled wryly before taking another swig of her beer, “I guess that’s life for you.”

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Kara responded. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was sorry for, but it felt like the right thing to say.

Waving her off, Maggie said, “Don’t be. I’m into the whole ‘everything happens for a reason’ thing, but it all worked out in the end. Yes, it sucked at the time. It sucked big time. But if Alex and I hadn’t broken up, Susan and I would never have started dating. And you wouldn’t be in an unofficial relationship with your ‘sister’ and your best friend.”   

“So you think Alex really has feelings for me?” Kara asked. To her surprise, there was hope in her voice. At some point during her conversation with Maggie, Kara realized she had gone from trying to explain why it was impossible for Alex to have feelings for her to hoping that Alex did.

“It’s not just me, kiddo,” Maggie answered. “Everyone can see it. I know for a fact that Susan agrees with me.” Maggie held up her free hand and began counting people who agreed with her. “So does Sam. And James. Winn too. J’onn can’t read your mind, but I’m sure Danvers and Luthor are practically screaming gay thoughts whenever they look at you. Brainy won’t talk about it because he says he doesn’t want to interfere with the timeline, but I’m pretty sure that’s because he knows it’s going to happen already. And from what you have said, Eve thinks you are already dating. Which means Jess does too.”

“Oh, Rao,” Kara said, as she could feel her cheeks flush. “Is there anyone who doesn’t think we’re together?”

“Well, there’s Eliza. Pretty sure she’s still deeply in denial about it.”

Kara huffed at that. If what Maggie was right then Eliza was a big part of why she and Alex had never ended up together years ago. She wasn’t about to let Eliza’s disapproval stand in their way this time. Kara realized it was time to tell Alex how much she loved her and to hell with the consequences.

Maggie poked at Kara’s furrowed brow. “Whoa, there, Little D. I know that look. That’s the look that says you are about two seconds from flying to the DEO to confess your feelings for Alex.”

“Isn’t that what you want me to do?” Kara asked, puzzled at why Maggie would try to stop her after she just spent all this time hyping her up.

“We all do,” Maggie confirmed. “But that’s not really a ‘at work’ conversation. And Alex is only part of the equation here. What about you and Lena?”

“What about us?”

“We all know you love her too.”

“Of course, I do!” Kara answered. Now that she was being honest with herself, it was clear that she had been in love with Lena for a while now.

“So there’s no tragic story holding you back there?” Maggie asked. “I figured maybe you would be worried about the whole Super/Luthor thing.”

Kara took a moment to reflect before answering that question. Lena’s last name had stopped being an issue for the hero about thirty seconds after they had met. And no matter how many times people tried to warn her not to trust Lena, she never doubted her friend. The Super/Luthor connection had never been a problem for them.

“No, nothing like that. I mean, I was a little worried how she would react when I told her I was Supergirl, sure, but that was only because I had kept it from her for so long; it was never about her last name. I actually had a bit of a thing for her when we first met,” Kara confessed. “But I thought she was straight so I never said anything.”

“Wait, you thought Lena Luthor, lesbian extradionaire, was straight?” Maggie chuckled. “Well, I guess now we know that gaydar isn’t one of your superpowers.”

“In my defense, Lena was pretty closed off about her dating history when we first met. The only partner she ever mentioned was Jack. By the time I found out she was gay, the whole mess with Mon-El and I was happening. By the time I was over that, Alex and Lena were starting their whole tentative flirting thing. So even though a part of me knew I was interested in Lena, I wasn’t going to try and ruin things between her and Alex. Risking our friendship would have been hard enough, but I would never do anything to risk their happiness.”

“And now?”

“Honestly,” Kara sighed, “that’s my biggest fear right now. I have feelings for both of them, and I’m hoping you are right that they have feelings for me too. But I’m terrified you might be wrong. Like, what if Lena has feelings for me and Alex doesn’t? They are so good together; it would kill me if I ended up messing that up.”

Maggie reasoned, “If Lena would leave Alex for you, or Alex would leave Lena for you, then their relationship is doomed whether you say something or not. But if you don’t say anything, the three might all miss out something really special.”

The idea of hurting either of the women she loved was almost physically painful to Kara. But Maggie was right. Keeping her feelings bottled up would not do any of them any favors in the long run.

Making a decision, Kara said, “You’re right. I have to tell them. I was so awkward around Lena at lunch today, and I was just starting to question my feelings then. Now that I realize I’m in love with both of them? They are going to know something is up with me. My only choices are to to talk to them or avoid them entirely. And I don’t want to avoid them.”

“Go, Little Danvers!” Maggie cheered, almost spilling her beer as she pumped a fist in the air.

“I’m really fucking scared though,” Kara admitted.

“Trust me, Kar. They are just as crazy about you as you are about them. You three are the only ones that haven’t figured that out yet.”

“You’re sure?” Kara asked, a quiver of doubt still in her voice.

“Positive,” Maggie said, punctuating her statement with a nod. “They might be just in denial about it as you were, so it might take them a little time to process, but they’ll get there.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Look at everything the three of you have survived up to this point. You’ve overcome so much shit and the three of you are stronger than ever. Even if somehow they don’t feel the same about you, nothing is going to destroy the bond you share.”

Having said her piece, Maggie turned the conversation to other topics, seeming to sense that now would be a good time for a distraction. Part of Kara wanted to just fly off and go confess her feelings, but seeing as Alex was busy at the DEO and Lena was busy at L-Corp, it wasn’t exactly the right time for that. So she was grateful for the distraction.

Maggie and Kara ended up binging Netflix for the next couple hours, Kara exchanging texts with her two potential girlfriends while Lena and Alex finished up with their respective work duties. The agent and the CEO both wrapped up their work days around the same time. Over their group chat, it was decided that Lena and her driver would pick Alex up and the two women would be spending the night at Kara’s apartment.

Her foster sister and best friend spending the night at her apartment was a common occurrence and, looking at it, Kara had to admit, it lent credence to Maggie’s theory that there was definitely more than friendship going on. If Kara were just a third wheel to Alex and Lena’s relationship, wouldn’t they be spending the night at one of their own apartments instead of going out of their way to spend the night with her?

“Well, I think that’s my cue to leave,” Maggie said, once Kara mentioned Alex and Lena were on their way over.

“You don’t have to leave just because Alex and Lena are coming,” Kara protested. “I am going to tell them, but not at 11 o’clock on a Thursday night when they’ve both been stuck at work all day.”

“I appreciate that, Little Danvers, but Susan has been dragging me along for her whole morning jogging thing, so I really should be going,” Maggie explained as she slipped on her shoes. “I really probably should have left like an hour ago, but I figured if I left you alone you’d start getting all worked up and anxious again.”

“Thanks, Mags,” Kara said, gathering her friend up in a hug. “You’re a really awesome friend, you know?”

“Yeah, yeah,” the detective answered, awkwardly patting Kara’s back. “Now let me get out of here before your girlfriends catch me being all sappy.”

Less than five minutes after Maggie had left, Lena was letting herself in to the apartment, with Alex right behind her. Kara smiled, her heart glad to see the two women. Kara realized there was another thing that had happened without her realizing it. At some point, the three of them had gotten past knocking; it felt like her place was just as much theirs as hers. And Kara realized the same was true whenever she went to Alex or Lena’s apartments.

Greeting her two kinda maybe girlfriends with their now traditional peck on the lips, Kara ushered the two exhausted women in. Pushing aside all thoughts of what may or may not be happening between them, the hero decided to just focus on her two favorite humans.

“Rough day?” Kara asked sympathetically, after Alex and Lena had changed into their night clothes and all but collapsed onto the couch.

“The worst,” Lena answered, rubbing her temples with one hand. “Sometimes I think I should just buy myself some remote tropical island to live on. Somewhere I’ll never have to deal with idiot board members every again.”

“Can I come too?” Alex asked.

“Of course. It wouldn’t be a tropical island paradise without my girls,” the CEO responded, waving a hand towards Alex and Kara.

“Can we have monkey butlers?” Alex asked.

“Be serious, Alex,” Lena scoffed. “We’re going to have robot butlers, obviously.”

“Ooh, I could bring Kelex! He probably gets lonely being at the Fortress all the time,” Kara offered, as she sat on the couch between Alex and Lena. The two tired women acknowledged her presence by leaning against her, Lena going as far as to put her head on Kara’s shoulder.

From there the conversation spiraled into an elaborate fantasy of their future island home. Robot butlers, chocolate fountains, an in-house team of chefs specializing in potstickers and pizza, the list went on. It was nice to to pretend they could set their responsibilities aside, if only for a few minutes.

Their conversation gradually grew softer and slower. It was probably only a few minutes before  Alex spoke in a whisper, “I think she’s out, Kar.”

Carefully tilting her head slightly to take in the brunette woman whose head was resting on her shoulder, Kara could see that Lena’s eyes had indeed closed and her breathing had evened out indicating she had indeed fallen asleep. Kara spoke just as softly in return, “She must be exhausted.”

Alex nodded before adding, “I’m about ready to drop myself. Can you take her to bed?”

“Sure. I got her,” Kara responded, gently carefully wrapping her one arm behind Lena’s back and another under her knees as she slowly floated off the couch. A moment later she gently placed Lena on the middle of the bed.

Kara was glad she had the foresight to prep for bed herself as soon as Maggie had left as, when she attempted to float back up off the bed, the still sleeping Lena gripped the front of Kara’s shirt with one hand and slid the other around her back, pulling the hero closer. By now, Kara had learned this was a clear sign of a really tired Lena; she always got extra snuggly when she was exhausted.

A few moments later, Alex slid onto the bed on the other side of Lena. She reached over and gave Kara’s bicep a quick squeeze. “Night, Kar,” she said softly.

“Night,” Kara whispered back before closing her eyes. Given the turmoil of the past day, she thought she would have a hard time getting to sleep, particularly as Kara was sharing a bed with the two women she now realized she had feelings for, one of whom was literally wrapped around her. It was perhaps a testament to just how normalized sharing a bed had become in their friendship (relationship?) that Kara was able to peacefully drift off to sleep in no time at all.

For the most part that sense of normalcy was something that the superhero was able to hold on to the next morning and the three women got ready to head out for the day. Well until people started having showers. Kara had caught herself letting her eyes down Alex’s towel-clad form when she emerged still dripping wet from her shower. It certainly didn’t help that Lena definitely caught Kara checking Alex out. Rather than being upset about it, the brunette had given Kara a smirk and a flirty wink. Which definitely didn’t help with Kara’s attempts not to be a flustered mess.  

Kara was almost 100% certain Lena was teasing her, when the CEO emerged from her own shower a few minutes later, wearing a towel that was just barely large enough to keep herself covered. Alex had just finished making some bagels, and Lena apparently decided that having her bagel right away was more important than getting dressed. Kara ended up bending three different knives as she attempted to butter her own bagel while trying not to let her gaze drift downwards towards Lena’s prominent cleavage. Her only saving grace was that Alex seemed to be just as distracted by the teasing display and apparently didn’t even notice that Kara had to keep getting new knives from the silverware drawer. Lena though, Lena definitely noticed.

On any ordinary morning, the three women would travel to work together, a nice perk of Lena having a driver (not that Kara needed a drive, but she enjoyed the routine). On this particular morning however, Kara begged off, saying she was in the mood for a quick flight before work.

Once the other two women departed her apartment, the reporter made a call to the office, letting Eve know that she wasn’t feeling very well and that she was going to take a sick day. Kara thought Eve might question her on the sudden illness since she knew about the whole Supergirl thing, but thankfully the woman never said anything. Which was good because Kara had a romantic evening to prepare for.

Luckily for Kara, it was Friday and they already had standing plans for a movie night each Friday (barring work and/or superhero obligations getting in the way). They rotated apartments each week, which could have been a problem since it was Lena’s week to host, but Kara had long since been added to the biometric locks to Lena’s penthouse apartment. It wasn’t uncommon for Kara or Alex to be at Lena’s apartment when Lena wasn’t there. The CEO wouldn’t have a problem with Kara appropriating the space today, particularly since it was for a good cause.

Kara spent her day dividing between dealing with a few small issues that required Supergirl’s help (ranging from a car chase to a house fire to finding a lost puppy) and zipping around town, picking up supplies she would need for dinner. She made sure to keep up her usual banter in the Superfriends group chat and the smaller one she shared with just Alex and Lena so they wouldn’t suspect she was planning anything. She even managed to meet up with Alex for a quick lunch at the DEO where she did her best to act like it was any other Friday and not like they were only a few hours from an event that would change their lives forever, no matter how it played out.

After lunch, Kara was able to convince Maggie to come with her to the mall to help her pick out a new dress for the occasion. The detective detested shopping normally, but Maggie’s excitement that Kara was finally going to talk to Lena and Alex about her feelings was enough to get her agree to help.

By 3 PM, Kara had gotten everything she needed and had also gotten J’onn to agree to cover her for any run-of-the-mill issues that might come up for the rest of the day (though she had avoided explaining exactly why she needed a night off all the sudden and thankfully he didn’t ask). Lena and Alex were having much more normal days at work and both confirmed they would be finished work by 5.

Alex was good about being done when she said she would be, but Lena had a habit of getting intensely focused on some new idea and accidentally working an extra hour or three longer than she intended. To prevent this from happening, Kara enlisted Jess’ help to ensure that Lena finished her work day on time. In this case, having Jess think that she, Alex and Lena were already dating worked out in her favor as Jess reassured her that she would make sure that Lena wouldn’t miss date night (not that Kara called it a date, but she figured it wasn’t worth correcting the assistant, particularly in light of the circumstances). Barring an alien invasion, or something equally catastrophic, they should have the evening to themselves.

With the food ready, the music playing, the lighting set, Kara quickly changed into her new dress, a strapless blue one that Maggie assured her really showed off Kara’s arms and touched up her make-up. Now there was nothing left for Kara to do but wait.

Fortunately for the sake of her own patience, there was only about fifteen minutes from when she finished getting ready and when the elevator doors to Lena’s penthouse opened. Even more fortunately, Alex and Lena arrived at the same time so Kara didn’t have to try and pretend the clearly romantic dinner she had prepared was just something ordinary while she waited for the other woman to arrive so she could start her planned spiel.

Alex and Lena were mid-conversation as they walked into the apartment, but they both stopped short when they noticed the ambiance of the room.

“Hi,” Kara said, waving shyly from over by the table.

“Hi,” Lena answered, a soft smile on her face as she walked over and greeted Kara with a kiss. “What’s the occasion?”

Alex remained by the door, her eyes focused on the chicken carbonara on the table, a look of surprise on her face. Clearly Alex remembered the last (and first and only) time Kara had cooked the dish for them. Kara wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one, but either way it was too late to chicken out now (no pun intended).

“Okay,” Kara said, taking a deep breath, “I have some stuff I want to say to both of you. This is really hard though,” Kara admitted, reaching up to adjust her glasses, before realizing she hadn’t put them back on after she finished cooking. “So please just let me say what I want to say before asking any questions, okay?”

“Of course,” Lena said softly, still smiling at Kara. Alex didn’t say anything, but she gave a nod, so Kara figured that was good enough.

“Okay, so I have to say stuff to both of you, but some of it is for you, Lena,” Kara said, reaching out and giving her friend’s hand a quick squeeze, “And some of it is for you, Alex,” she said, nodding her head towards Alex, who remained across the room and outside of hand squeezing range, “But really it’s all for both of you. And I think it’s a good thing. A very good thing. And I really hope you will too, so please just try and keep an open mind, okay?”

“Shoot, I’m rambling already,” Kara said, before taking another deep breath, “Okay, here goes. For real, this time,” she added, taking another breath before pressing forward. She’s not sure where to look so she ends up focusing her eyes on flickering light from the candles on the table in front of her. “I love both of you. Not like, in like a ‘I love you because you are my best friend and my foster sister’ sort of way but like in a ‘I can’t stop thinking about kissing you and I want us to build a life together sort of way.’”

Kara chances a quick look at Lena, and is encouraged to see that her friend is still smiling softly at her. The next part of her speech is for Lena so she takes one of the CEO’s hands in her own before continuing. “From the first moment we met, we’ve always had a connection. Even when everyone was all, ‘You can’t trust her, she’s a Luthor,’ I never, ever doubted you. Not for one second. You’ve changed my life in so many ways. You’re the reason I became a reporter. Even more importantly, you showed me that I don’t need powers to feel special. That Kara Danvers can be a hero too. When I’m with you, I feel like I can do anything. I mean, I know I’m a superhero so I can literally do anything, but, like… I’m rambling again.”

“When we first met, I had such a crush on you. But I thought you were straight. Yeah, dumb, I know. And by the time I found out I was wrong, I was with Mon El. Even then, I knew I loved you, but I let myself think the way I felt about you was just the way that best friends are supposed to feel each other.

“But yesterday I did a lot of thinking and I realized that I didn’t love you in a best friend way. Well, I do love you in a best friend way. I totally love you in a best friend way; who wouldn't? You’re amazing!” Kara insisted. “But I also love you in the ‘I’m in love with you’ way too. And I really hope you feel the same or this is going to be super awkward.”

Kara really wanted to ask Lena what she was thinking. The other woman had started to get misty-eyed at some point, but she was still smiling and she hadn’t pulled her hand away from Kara’s. Those were all good signs. But Kara knew she had to talk to Alex too before she could ask Lena how she felt. Especially when the agent was literally standing on the other side of the room, listening to everything she said.

“Okay,” Kara sighed. “Um, that’s what I wanted to say to you, Lena. Uh, but now I have to talk to Alex. Rao, it’s really awkward trying to confess your feelings to two people at once,” Kara added, drawing a small chuckle from Lena.

Reluctantly, Kara let go of Lena’s hand and crossed the short distance to Alex. She met her foster sister’s gaze. She could usually read Alex like an open book, but when she looked into her eyes the only emotion she could definitely read was surprise. There were other emotions in there, but Kara wasn’t sure what they were. She’s pretty sure she isn’t seeing any anger or disgust though, and Alex hasn’t interrupted her or stormed out so far. Kara figured that was the best she could hope for.

“When I first came to live with you and your family, I was a mess. I was alone on a whole new planet after losing everything and almost everyone I had ever known. And on top of that, I was abandoned by my cousin and had to deal with suddenly having superpowers.” Those first few months on Earth, as she had to grapple with the loss of her home planet while trying to fit in on a planet where she couldn’t be herself had been the hardest time in Kara’s life.

“We didn’t get along so well at first; I had a lot of pain and anger and I’m sure you didn’t exactly appreciate suddenly having to look after some weird alien kid. But, even then, whenever I felt like I was going to break, like I couldn’t take it anymore, you were always there for me. We might go back to hating each other after, but from the start you always made sure someone was on my side.” Kara isn’t sure how she would have made it through those early months and years on Earth if she hadn’t had Alex to support her.

“Lena was the one that taught me that Kara Danvers could be special, but you’re the one that inspired me to become a hero in the first place,” Kara explained. “I’m not just talking about having to save you from that plane crash either. You taught me how to be brave, and about how important it is to help people. Not to mention, after you got over your initial freak-out, you’ve been by my side helping me stop whatever rogue aliens and metahumans that need to be stopped.

“And I know we’ve been down this road before, back in Midvale when you helped me with the whole kissing without breaking someone’s nose thing. And I know it didn’t mean anything to you then, I know you were just trying to help me, like you always do. But a lot has changed—”

For the first time since she had entered the apartment, Alex spoke up, interrupting Kara. “Kara, what are you talking about? You had feelings for me all those years ago?”

“Well, yeah,” Kara shrugged. “Turns out that I still do.”

“Why didn’t you ever say anything?” Alex asked, disbelief in her tone.

“I was going to,” the hero responded, “I had the whole night planned out. After we finished dessert, I was going to tell you how I felt and ask you to be my girlfriend. But then Eliza caught us and freaked out. I was still going to ask you even after that, but by the time Eliza had gone to bed, you were faking being asleep. And then when I went for a flight to clear my head, you left for school without even giving me a chance to say goodbye.”

“But you were the one that didn’t want to talk to me!” Alex protested. “After Eliza finished yelling at me, I came back to our room. I wanted to tell you that I had feelings for you; that I didn’t give a damn what mom said. But you were just sitting there, curled up in a ball and you wouldn’t even look at me. I was so scared that mom was right. That I had been taking advantage of you and that I was the only one to develop feelings that summer.”

“What?” Kara asked, totally flabbergasted.

“That’s why I left!” Alex shouted. “I was in love with you, but you wouldn’t talk to me; I thought you agreed with mom and that you just wanted to put the whole thing behind you. That it was just practice for you and that it didn’t mean anything!”

Kara couldn’t believe it. All this time, she had totally misread that night. “I was upset about what Eliza said, but that wasn’t why I didn’t talk to you. I was worried that Eliza would walk in on my big confession. I was waiting until she went to sleep. Then I was going to tell you everything” Kara argued. “Oh Rao, we were both idiots, weren’t we?”

“So you really had feelings for me all this time?” Alex asked, hesitancy in her voice.

“Yeah,” Kara confirmed. “I totally convinced myself I didn’t though. That the summer when we almost dated was nice, but that it wasn’t anything serious. Even with how the three of us have been getting closer lately, it never even occurred to me that I might still have feelings for you. Until very recently at least.”

Alex breathed a sigh. “Wow. Now that I think about it, that probably explains my aggressively hetrosexual stage back in grad school. I liked being with you too, and it scared me. Not just because we were supposed to be sisters, but because of the whole you were a woman thing. And then when I thought you didn’t like me back, I think some part of me decided, nope, I’m not gay. I think my brain thought if I didn’t like women, then I couldn’t be hurt by what happened that night.”

Alex laughed bitterly, “God, I did the exact same thing all over again when I thought Maggie didn’t like me. You think I would have learned my lesson.”

“Well, at least you got there eventually,” Kara comforted. “And besides, I think things worked out much better this way.”

“How so?” Alex asked.

“We both still had a lot of growing up to do back then. I hadn’t found a way to embrace my powers yet and you hadn’t figured out just how much of a badass you could be. Plus, if we had gotten together way back then, we might not have ever met Lena.” While Lena had only been a part of their lives the last couple years, Kara couldn’t even begin to contemplate what her life would be like if Lena weren’t in it.

“Yeah. I can’t even imagine not having met you, Lena,” Alex said to the brunette, pretty much echoing Kara’s exact thoughts on the matter.

Having brought up Lena, Kara figured this was probably a good time to make sure they were all on the same page. “Yeah, so, that’s me. I’m in love with both of you and I totally think we should all date. Oh, and so do like all of our friends apparently!”

“What?” Alex gasped at the last part.

“I was surprised too,” Kara admitted. “But Maggie says that she, Vasquez, Sam, Winn and even James have all been waiting for us to get together for a while now. Oh!” Kara adds as she remembers something else, “And, uh, Eve and Jess think we’re already dating so there’s that too!”

“In the interest of full disclosure,” Lena cuts in, looking uncharacteristically vulnerable, “I thought we were dating too.”

All in all, Kara thought she had handled the surprises of the last couple days pretty well. Sure, she had been caught off-guard, but in her opinion she had dealt with the revelation first that people thought she was dating her foster sister and/or best friend, and then the revelation that she basically was already dating both of them and that was something she very much wanted, pretty well all things considered. But she wasn’t sure how to cope with this latest bombshell. Even a Kryptonian could only handle so many surprises at once!

“Huh?” Alex asked, apparently just as confused as Kara.

“Wasn’t that what our whole belated Valentine’s Day dinner in Paris was about?” Lena asked.

“Well,” Kara stammered, “That was actually supposed to be just for you and Alex.”

There had indeed been a Valentine’s Day dinner in Paris a couple months earlier. Lena and Alex had to cancel their own Valentine’s Day plans when CADMUS had managed to hit Supergirl with a Kryptonite bullet in an ambush on Valentine’s Day.

The injury wasn’t actually that bad; Kara had taken the wound in her shoulder; it hadn’t hit anything vital and Alex had been able to extract it without much trouble. But Kara was laid up in the DEO infirmary for a mandatory 24 hours of observation and no matter how much Kara tried to insist that Alex and Lena keep their dinner plans, the two women had steadfastly refused. It probably didn’t help that Kara had been weakened enough from the Kryptonite exposure that she had struggled to sit up in her bed when she insisted that they didn’t need to worry about her.

Kara had felt terrible about ruining Alex and Lena’s first Valentine’s Day as a couple, so a few days later, once she had fully recovered, she had called in a few favors to plan a surprise Valentine’s Day dinner for her two favorite people.

She didn’t like accepting favors for anything she did as Supergirl, but thankfully the years that Kara Danvers had spent as Cat Grant’s assistant meant she had made a lot of connections with other assistants, drivers, security services, chefs and many other people all over the world. Thanks to this intricate web of friendships, in the course of just a few hours she was able to reserve an entire rooftop patio for a French bistro that Ms Grant had raved about during a trip a few years earlier.

Kara had wanted the dinner to be a surprise; she hadn’t told them what she had planned, only saying that she had something she wanted to show them. And thanks to a special harness Lena had built, Kara had been able to fly both Lena and Alex halfway around in a single trip in just a matter of minutes (while both Lena and Alex enjoyed flying with Kara, even when you had superpowers it was pretty awkward to carry two people at once, especially for a longer flight. Two weeks after their first attempt at a three person flight, Lena had presented Kara with a special harness that would let one person fly on her back and one on her front. It also allowed Kara to fly 35% faster without having to worry about injuring the people she was carrying).

Obviously since she had arranged this dinner as Kara Danvers, she couldn’t just drop the two women on the roof, but instead had landed them by the entrance to the restaurant. She disappeared around the corner long enough to change out of her supersuit and retrieve the two bouquets of flowers she had stowed away an hour earlier in a little alcove in the alleyway.

Returning back to the front of the restaurant at human speed, Kara had handed over the bouquets. A bouquet of plumerias for Lena, of course, and an arrangement the florist had suggested for Alex.

“The two of you always do so much for me,” Kara had said. “I mean, I literally wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for the two of you. But more than that, you have brought such happiness to my life. And so I wanted to do something to show you how much I appreciate both of you.”

Leading her way inside, Kara had spoken briefly to the hostess in French, citing her reservation under Danvers. The three women were led up to the rooftop terrace. This was the point in the night that Kara had planned to leave the couple to their date. However, when they arrived on the terrace, she had been surprised to see the table was set up for three people rather than two.

Despite speaking seventeen languages (eleven of which were from Earth), French wasn’t really her strong suit. In her defense, the Nisaran word for two, traas, was very close to the French word for three, tres, so it was an easy to mistake to make.

Lena and Alex both seemed to assume that Kara was supposed to eat with them. And they both had seemed like they were happy she was joining them so even though she had planned the night for just them, the hero had quickly changed her plans and joined the two women for what was, in hindsight, a pretty romantic dinner.

“What do you mean?” Lena asked, back in the present.

Thinking back on it, it was easy to see why Lena may have gotten the wrong idea. Though, was it really the wrong idea considering where they were now? Kara explained to her how she messed up the reservation and felt like she couldn’t just leave when they expected her to stay.

“I’m glad you stayed, Kar,” Alex said. “That was like the best kinda Valentine’s Day dinner I’ve ever had.”

Lena, for her part, still seemed focused on the fact that Kara hadn’t meant the night as a big romantic gesture. “It was really just a big misunderstanding?”

“Yep,” Kara confirmed.

“But that was the first night we kissed!” Lena protested.

“I wondered when that started!” Kara exclaimed, glad to have solved that little mystery. “It just seemed like a natural thing we were doing; I didn’t even really realize it was something we had been doing until yesterday,” Kara admitted. “I had no idea when we moved from hello and goodbye hugs to cheek kisses and then to kiss kisses.”

“This explains a lot,” Lena answered. “I’ve never dated two people before, but I was happy to let the two of you set the pace. I thought we were just taking things slowly when we hadn’t moved from cuddling and little kisses to anything more intimate. I figured maybe you and Alex needed time to adjust on account of the whole foster sisters thing. God, I feel like an idiot.”

“Lena, no!” Kara and Alex protested in sync.

“You aren’t an idiot,” Kara added. “If anyone was the idiot, it was me. I was the one that took the two people I’m in love with out for a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner without even realizing that’s what I was doing. And despite all the time we’ve been spending together and the cuddling and the sleepovers and the kissing, I just thought we were just all really great pals.”

When nobody said anything, Kara reached over and prodded her foster sister’s shoulder. “This is the part where you are supposed to say you’re the idiot.”

“Oh, no. I’m the smart one,” Alex said with a smirk.

“Alex!” Kara whined, pouting at the agent.

“Okay, fine,” Alex sighed with mock exasperation. “I was an idiot too. Though really I think I’ve got the best case. Lena, you figured out what this was months ago, and Kara you figured it out yesterday. I didn’t figure out until like 10 minutes ago when it was spelled out for me.”

“But you are figuring it out?” Kara asked, feeling hope bloom in her chest.

The agent nodded her head before adding, “Yeah. I think some part of me has been in love with you for years, Kara. And, Lena, being with you has been amazing. I never feel stronger or safer than when I’m with the two of you, but…”

When Alex didn’t say anything after several seconds, Kara softly asked, “But?”  

“I’m scared,” Alex admitted. “I love both of you so much. And these past couple months have been great. But what if we try to make this official and we fuck everything up? Dating one person is complicated enough; dating two is going to be even more challenging. And I would hate to lose either of you because we try this and it doesn’t work out.”

Kara had similar fears, of course. Talking with Maggie about them had helped, but it was still scary. She was confident they could make it work though, and she was about to tell her foster sister that when Lena stepped forward into Alex’s space, reaching out and taking her girlfriend’s hands in her own. “If anyone knows about trust and abandonment issues, it’s me. But no matter what happens, even if this somehow blows up in our faces, the three of us will always be there for each other. Just look at what we’ve been through so far.”

Still holding Alex’s hands, Lena turned her head to face Kara, “My brother tried to kill your cousin, repeatedly. My mother has kidnapped and tortured you, tried to kill you and tried to kill all aliens on this planet. The first time we met, it was because you thought I was behind a terrorist attack. Yet you believed me when I said I was innocent. And from that day forward, anytime someone has come after me, or framed me, or just said unkind words about me, you’ve been there, supporting me and believing in me.”

“Always,” Kara agreed. She has always believed in Lena and she knew in her heart she always would.

“You also lied to me about who you really were. Maintaining a friendship with me as two different people for over a year and a half before you finally came clean. Even then, it was only because Alex convinced you. I was hurt and angry when I found out the truth. I didn’t I’d ever be able to trust you again. But I soon realized that it’s physically impossible for me to stay mad at you for long.”

Lena turned her head, locking eyes once more with the other Danvers. “And Alex, you were convinced that I was just another Luthor.” Kara could see Alex opening her mouth to respond, but Lena continued. “We both know it’s true. Hell, when Cadmus framed me for breaking Lillian out of jail, you were leading the charge to have me arrested. The only thing we had in common was how much we cared about Kara. Of course, I didn’t know Kara was Supergirl back then so I had no idea why you were so suspicious of my motives. Other than a general distrust of my last name, at least.”

“If you had asked me a year ago if I thought the two of us could ever be friends, I would have laughed in your face. But we eventually learned to trust each other and look at us now,” Lena said, squeezing her girlfriend’s hands for emphasis.

Lena let go of one of Alex’s hands and reached out to take one of Kara’s hands. “The three of us been able to get beyond secret identities, trust issues, frame jobs and murderous families. Working together we’ve stopped corrupt businessmen, halted the Daxamite invasion, and even cured Worldkillers. Compared to everything we’ve faced so far, navigating a polyamorous relationship, even with all our emotional baggage, should be a piece of cake.”

“And we all know how Kara feels about cake,” Alex quipped.

“Okay,” Kara said. “I’m in. Lena’s been in before the rest of us knew there was something to be in. That just leaves your decision, Alex.” As she spoke, Kara reached out and interlocked the fingers on her free hand with the fingers on Alex’s free hand so the three women were forming a circle with their arms. “What do you say? Think you can handle dating a Super and a Luthor?”

From everything that had been said in the last few minutes, it seemed pretty clear that Alex wants this just as much as she and Lena did, but that didn’t stop Kara’s heart from pounding extra hard as she waited for the answer. Lena, either picking up on Kara’s fears or sharing them, squeezed Kara’s hand tightly, offering them both a bit of comfort as they held their breaths waiting for Alex to speak.

After what was probably only a couple seconds, but felt like much longer, Alex spoke, “Two conditions.”

“Anything,” Kara responded. She would accept any condition Alex might have it meant they could do this.

After Lena nodded as well, Alex continued, “First, we have work on this whole communicating thing. If we managed to date for two months without two of us even noticing, then clearly we are not talking about how we are feeling enough.”

There was no arguing that point. If they wanted to make this work, they were definitely going to have to work on their communication skills. Kara was pretty much an open book about her feelings (at least when she was aware she was feeling them) so she knew that wouldn’t be a problem for her. Alex and Lena weren’t usually big on talking about their feelings, but they’d have to learn if this was going to work.

“Fair enough,” Kara agreed. “And the second condition?”

“You have to be the one to tell Mom.”

“Done!” Kara answered, without even a moment’s hesitation. That would be an awkward conversation, no doubt, but she’d gladly have a thousand awkward conversations with Eliza if meant she could make the women she loved happy.

“Wow, that was easy,” Alex joked. “If I had known how agreeable you would be, I would have had more conditions.”

“You know I’d do anything for you,” Kara responded, gazing at the redhead with utter sincerity.

“Okay,” Alex nodded, “I’m in. So what do—”

Under any other circumstance, Kara would have kept listening to what Alex was saying. But the hero was so excited she couldn’t help but lean forward and pull Alex into a kiss, cutting off whatever the other woman was about to say. Alex, for her part, seemed caught off-guard for an instant before she recovered and returned the kiss just as enthusiastically.

Kara couldn’t believe it. She was kissing Alex. Like for real kissing. Like they had done when they were practicing, but this time it definitely was not practice. Now she got to do this all the time. With Alex and with Lena!

The realization that she could kiss Lena too was enough to get Kara to break her kiss with Alex as she turned to give Lena a kiss of her own. Lena, having seen what happened to Alex, was much more prepared for the hero’s sudden affection and she smiled into the kiss.

Kara was no more sure how long she and Lena kissed than she was sure how long she and Alex had kissed, but when she finally pulled away, she realized she had kind of just jumped her two… girlfriends? They were her girlfriends now, right? She was pretty sure that was right and she was so happy about that that she almost grabbed one of them for another kiss before remembering that was what she had to talk about in the first place.

“Shoot, sorry,” Kara stammered. “I totally should have asked before I did that. Consent is very important. I’m all about consent. It’s just when Alex said she was in, I was just like so excited that I didn’t think; I just acted. Not that that is a good excuse. I am so sorry. I totally won’t—”

Kara’s rambling was interrupted as the other two women burst into laughter. “Oh, darling,” Lena said, pulling Kara back in and giving her a gentle kiss. “Don’t ever change.”

“I just don’t want to mess things up before we even get started,” Kara pouted.

“It’s going to take a lot more than an amazing kiss to mess things up,” Alex teased.

Relieved she hadn’t ruined anything, Kara switched gears, “Let’s go on a date!”

“Aren’t we on a date right now?” Alex asked, gesturing to the table where their food sat cooling; the candles that Kara had lit, now substantially lower than when they had arrived.

“Oh, right,” Kara said. “I guess this kind of is a date, isn’t it?”

“Well, Friday nights are date night,” Lena pointed out. “At least that’s what I’ve been calling them. I even have it on my calendar.” Lena pulled out her phone, tapping the screen a few times and handing the phone over to Kara so she could see that Friday nights, 6 PM to midnight were indeed scheduled as ‘Date Night.’

“That’s why Eve thought we were dating!” Kara exclaimed.

“How does that explain anything?” Lena asked. “The only other person that has full access to my calendar is Jess.”

“Yeah, and Jess and Eve are dating,” Kara explained. “So obviously Jess must have told Eve.”

“Jess and Eve are dating?” The CEO asked, eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement.

“Even I knew that,” Alex teased. “Looks like Kar and I aren’t the only ones that can be oblivious sometimes.” Kara just laughed, not bothering to point out that she only knew because Eve had told her.

Kara snapped her fingers, realizing something. “You two have to kiss! I kissed both of you, but you haven’t kissed each other yet.”

Lena raised an eyebrow at the hero, “You do realize that your sister and I have been kissing for months now, right?”

“Yeah, but that was before we were all dating officially. I got to kiss both of you, but you haven’t gotten to kiss each other. I don’t want anyone to feel left out!”

“Well, if it will make you feel better, darling,” Lena chuckled before pulling the redhead into a passionate kiss.

This was hardly the first time that Alex and Lena had kissed in front of her, but those were usually just brief kisses; not all that dissimilar to the ones that she had been sharing with both women for the past couple months. There definitely hadn’t been any tongue involved before. Nor had there been any moans!

Had she witnessed the two women locked into a similar embrace only a couple of days earlier, Kara would have looked away, flushed in what she would have decided was embarrassment and felt super awkward about the situation. But with her change of perspective, she found herself mesmerized by the sight in front of her. She knew she had feelings for both women, but she didn’t realize how much she would enjoy watching the two of them together.

Kara could have stood there and watched her partners kissing all night, but at that very moment Kara’s stomach chose to interrupt, letting out a growl loud enough that Alex and Lena heard it a few feet away, even in their distracted state. The two women pulled apart, laughing at the Super’s appetite.

“No, don’t stop,” Kara pleaded. “I was kind of busy getting everything ready for tonight so I had to skip second lunch, but watching you two kiss is like wow.” Kara fanned herself, “This is way better than food.”

“We can’t have you starving on us, Supergirl,” Alex teased.

“Besides, there will be plenty of time for kissing later,” Lena smirked before adding, “And other things,” with a wink.

As Kara sat down to share a meal with her new girlfriends, she couldn’t stop smiling. To the surprise of approximately nobody, Lena was right. When the three of them were together, they really could do anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is actually the second time I ended up pairing Jess and Eve together in a story without having planned it in advance. I guess Jess and non-evil Eve just seem like a good fit? I had already written Eve and Jess into the story before the events of 4x15. I thought about changing it, but I really like non-evil Eve so in this AU she has never met nor had any desire to meet Lex Luthor. 
> 
> I also tried to give a bit of a more realistic timeline for Maggie and Alex's relationship ending. Both to give Alex time to get over Maggie before she started dating Lena and to address how silly it was in canon that they were engaged for like 6 months before the subject of kids came up.


	2. A Trip to Midvale

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me way longer to get to this than I originally intended but here's an epilogue of sorts.

In the end, they all decide to go to Midvale together to tell Eliza. Kara had no qualms with living up to her promise to do it on her own, but Alex decided that she wasn’t going to make Kara face their mom alone. Not surprisingly, Lena insisted on coming along too; she said that no matter how badly Eliza reacted, it would be nothing compared to what she had faced from Lillian over the years. 

The trio had been officially dating for a little over three months now. There had been some discussion about whether they should count their Valentine’s date that wasn’t technically a date as the start of their relationship, but since Lena was the only one that had even realized they were all dating back then, they decided the night they finally got together officially made more sense. 

Telling their friends had been easy enough. While Eve and Jess had been the only ones that thought they were already dating, nobody else seemed at all surprised by the news. There were lots of hearty congratulations and declarations that it “was about time.” Kara couldn’t have hoped for a better or more supportive reaction from their friend circle. 

In public, they had decided to maintain the illusion that Alex and Lena were dating and Kara was just the sister/best friend. Kara had wanted to be open about their relationship, not wanting to have to hide another aspect of her life, but Lena and Alex were worried about the extra attention that would inevitably follow if the tabloids found out that Lena Luthor was in a relationship with two foster sisters. Specifically they were worried all that added attention could lead to Kara’s secret identity being exposed. 

Kara hadn’t liked feeling like a dirty secret, and it had led to the first real fight of their relationship. It had taken some time and another pep talk from Maggie but eventually Kara realized that, like always, Lena and Alex were only wanting to protect Kara. That they disliked hiding their relationship just as much as she did. It was just something they all had to do if they wanted to keep Kara’s alter-ego a secret. 

They all agreed that if Kara ever decided to publicly embrace her superhero side (or her secret got out somehow), that they would go public with their relationship. For now though, they would have to pretend. 

Really pretending in public wasn’t that hard. As far as the world at large knew, Lena was her best friend and Alex was her foster sister. As such, nobody batted an eye at them going to a park, going to the movies or going out to dinner, even at a romantic restaurant. So hiding was really more of a niggling annoyance than a real impediment to their happiness. 

Because they had decided to keep their relationship out of the public eye that they had been able to put off telling Eliza as long as they had. But now it was October and they were planning to have everyone come to their apartment for Thanksgiving. Everyone that would be there already knew. Eliza was the only one that didn’t. They didn’t want to spend the day surrounded by their little family having to pretend that they weren’t together, Eliza asking Kara how if she had her eye on anyone, or worse, trying to set up her up with someone. 

Kara harbored no delusions that Eliza would accept their relationship. The older woman had been quite clear in her opposition to Alex and Kara being anything other than sisters when they were younger. It didn’t seem likely that finding out there were also dating Lena would do much to smooth things over. Kara knew telling Eliza would be a disaster but she was hoping if they told her now, it would give her a month to process and accept (or at least tolerate) the fact her foster daughters were dating. And if she wasn’t able to do that, then they would have Thanksgiving without her. 

Normally when the three of them went anywhere outside of National City (outside of Lena’s business trips, at least), Kara would fly them. Kara loved flying with Lena and Alex and, with how little free time they had together, it made sense to not waste a bunch of it traveling by vehicle. For the journey to Midvale though, they decided to have a road trip. Even if the meeting with Eliza was likely to be a total disaster, this was Kara and Alex’s first chance to show Lena their hometown and they wanted to make the most of it. 

Kara had always loved taking road trips with Alex, even before they were together. Some of her fondest memories of her time on Earth were just her and Alex on the open road. No evils to thwart, no jobs to worry about, no responsibilities. Just the two of them and the seemingly endless miles. 

Alex was a natural worrier; even more than Kara, the DEO agent took the weight of the world on her shoulders. It was different during a road trip. When they were on the road, Alex was freer. Softer. Happier. 

If there was anyone that had a harder time relaxing than Alex, it was the CEO of L-Corp. It turned out that Lena had never really been on a proper road trip before either. But normally when she had to travel somewhere by car, she would be in the back of a limo or town car, working away while her driver got her to her destination. 

When they found out their girlfriend had never had a real road trip before Alex and Kara insisted that Lena needed to have the full Danvers road trip experience. Since their very first meeting, Lena had a hard time saying no to Kara and once the two had started dating, she wasn’t much better at saying no to Alex. There was no way she could say no to both of them and so it was agreed they would drive to Midvale. 

While Alex and Kara had needed to bring their girlfriend up to speed about exactly what a Danvers road trip entailed (mostly what snacks to bring and what music was best for a road trip), the CEO had taken to the concept pretty quickly. By the time they were hitting the outskirts of National City, Lena was singing along to the radio just as enthusiastically as Kara and Alex, not letting her admittedly off-key performance detract from the experience at all. 

The trio arrived in Midvale a little before noon. Eliza wasn’t expecting them until 5, so that left them the whole afternoon to enjoy Midvale. That included stops at Alex’s favorite diner and Kara’s favorite ice cream parlor. Then they gave Lena a quick tour of the town, Kara and Alex providing a running commentary.  

The food and the tour only took up a couple hours so then they drove up the coast a bit and took a quick flight through the woods to reach Kara and Alex’s favorite spot in all of Midvale. Kara told Lena all about how she and Alex had stumbled across the secluded bit of beach when they were teenagers. 

The beachfront was only a couple hundred feet and was surrounded by steep cliffs on three sides and was far enough from town that there were no boats in sight. In the years since Kara and Alex had first found their little oasis, they had never seen another person there, and only rarely had seen a boat pass in the distance. 

“This is our special place,” Kara explained. “Whenever we wanted to get away from the world, we could come here. When we were here, we could just be Kara and Alex. It was like the rest of the world didn’t exist.” 

“We wanted to share this with you,” Alex added. 

“It’s beautiful,” Lena admitted. 

“Kara and I usually come here a few times a year; whenever we feel like just getting away from it all. It’s way nicer than the Fortress of Solitude,” Alex teased. 

“Hey, the Fortress is pretty cool too!” 

“That’s the problem! Not all of us are impervious to sub-zero temperatures,” Alex countered, sticking out her tongue. “Plus we don’t have to worry about Clark just showing up here. This beach is just ours.” 

“And now it’s yours too,” Kara added. “Anytime you want to come, just let me know and we can be here in a jiffy.” 

For the next couple hours, the three women enjoyed their oasis. They all went swimming, Alex went surfing and Kara managed to persuade Lena to help with building a surprisingly elaborate sandcastle. It was a great afternoon. 

None of them had wanted to leave their happy little bubble on the beach for what was likely to be, at best, a very awkward family dinner. But they realized that showing up late wouldn’t do anything to make things better so eventually they packed up their belongings and Kara flew them back to the car. 

Once they got back to the car, Kara could feel her worries about the meeting with Eliza, worries she had mostly been able to put in the back of her head as she enjoyed a great day with her girlfriends, take the forefront. As a superhero, Kara was used to physical confrontations, but she still hated emotional ones. From the way Alex was tensing up, it was obvious she was worried too. Lena must have picked up on their worry as she offered to drive even though she was the only one that didn’t know the way. 

Up to this point in the day, they had been rotating the seating arrangements. One of them driving, one of them seated in the passenger seat and one of them in the back. When Alex made to climb in the back seat though, Kara took her hand, gently guiding the other woman into the front passenger seat with her. Kara wanted to make sure Alex knew they were there for her. 

Lena did her best to distract Kara and Alex on the twenty minute drive back into town, but the closer to Midvale they got, the quieter that Alex and Kara got, and the more Alex burrowed into Kara’s lap. They were just around the corner from their childhood home when Lena pulled off to the side of the road, putting the car in park. 

Lena unbuckled her seat belt and awkwardly climbed over the center console, joining Kara and Alex in the front passenger seat. The seat was definitely not made to fit three people, so it was a bit cramped but Kara wasn’t about to complain. “We don’t have to do this if you aren’t ready,” Lena assured. “We can just have a nice dinner with your mom. We won’t even have to lie to her; your mom already knows Alex and I are dating, and that Kara’s my best friend. She won’t think anything of how close the three of us are if we don’t tell her.” 

Despite her clear nervousness, it was Alex that was the first to answer, “I want to tell her. I’m not going to hide who I love just to make my mom happy. I hate that we already have to pretend for the press; it’s not fair to Kara. No fucking way am I pretending I’m not madly in love with both of you in our private life.”

Kara could feel her eyes misting up at her girlfriend’s words. “Thank you, Alex.” 

“So we’re doing this then?” Lena asked.

Kara and Alex exchanged a look. Kara could see the fear in Alex’s eyes, but there was determination too. Far more determination than fear. Kara knew her eyes were showing much the same. The two women nodded at once. They were ready to face whatever might come next. 

“I’m so proud of both of you,” Lena said. “I was going to save this as a surprise for later, in case we needed a contingency plan, but I think it might be better if I tell you now. I rented us a cabin for tonight. Well, really it’s more of a chalet than a cabin. It’s very nice, very private and only about a 45 minute drive from here. I know we’re supposed to be staying at your mom’s, but if your mom reacts badly, I wanted you to know we have somewhere great we can stay.”

“Is there a hot tub?” Alex asked. 

“There are two hot tubs,” Lena assured. “There’s a chef on call, 24 hours a day. And it’s nestled on a beautiful little lake. It’s probably not as nice as our beach, but it’s the best-rated accomodations within a 2 hour drive of here.” 

Kara gave her girlfriend a quick kiss, “Thank you.” To an outside observer it might look like Lena just didn’t want to have to sleep in some dingy motel, but Kara knew her girlfriend. Renting a cabin for the night that they might not even need, one which probably cost more than Kara wanted to think about, was 100% about making sure that Kara and Alex would have somewhere safe to recover should dinner with Eliza go poorly. 

“Okay,” Alex drew herself up, looking like she was preparing for battle. “Let’s do this before I chicken out.”

“Okay,” Kara agreed. “One last thing though. I need a kiss. For luck.” 

“For luck, eh?” Alex chuckled before leaning forward and obliging Kara. 

“You too, Lena.” 

Lena laughed, “I just kissed you like 30 seconds ago.” 

“But that was a thank you kiss!” Kara pouted. “This will be a good luck kiss!” Lena may have rolled her eyes, but she was happy to kiss Kara again. 

“Alex needs one too!” Kara insisted. This time Kara was met by eyerolls from both her girlfriends; they pretended they were just humoring her as they began to kiss, slow and gentle. Kara knew Alex needed the comfort just as much as Kara had. Plus, Kara never got tired of watching her girlfriends kiss; it was even better when both women were in her lap while doing so. 

Once everyone had gotten enough good luck kisses, and fixed their make-up from getting a little too carried away with some of those good luck kisses, Lena started the car back up, pulled the car back onto the street and within a couple of minutes, the three women were parked in the driveway of Eliza’s house. 

Kara was glad Lena had the foresight to give them a chance to prepare safely out of sight of the house, because no sooner had Lena pulled the car keys out of the ignition when Eliza’s was opening the front door of the house to greet them. 

Eliza greeted them warmly, hugging each of the women in turn. As Kara watched Alex give her mother a tight hug, she locked eyes with her girlfriend; it was clear they were both wondering the same thing. Would this be the last time Eliza hugged any of them? Kara hoped not, especially for Alex’s sake. 

“Did you girls have a nice drive up?” 

Kara nodded, smiling softly. “Yeah, it was good.” 

“Turns out this one,” Alex said, cocking a thumb at Lena, “had never been on a real road trip before.” 

Eliza laughed. “Did you give the poor girl the full Danvers road trip experience?” 

“They did,” Lena confirmed. “It’s not how I’m used to traveling but I must say it was quite lovely.” 

“Well, come on in. I just need to pull dinner out of the oven.” 

Everyone did as Eliza suggested and soon they were seated around the dining room table. Because there were only four of them, they were using the regular dining room table instead of the larger one that was usually pulled out for special occasions. 

The dining room table was round one. Eliza and Alex were seated across from each other, as were Kara and Lena. Kara was glad for the smaller table as that meant she could surreptitiously  reach out and give Alex’s leg a reassuring squeeze whenever she sensed that her nerves were starting to get to her. 

The three of them had discussed their gameplan in the weeks leading up to this trip. There had been some discussion of telling Eliza as soon as they arrived, but in the end it was decided they would wait until after dinner was over and they had a chance to clean up before they broached the real reason for their visit. 

Eliza had made one of Lena’s favorite dishes, and while it was a lot healthier than Kara’s normal fare, she had to admit it was still delicious. Kara found herself getting not only seconds and thirds (which honestly was normal for a hungry Kryptonian) but even fourths and fifths. 

Around the time Kara started in on her fifth plate even though she was already full, Kara realized that her sudden need to keep eating was less about how good the chicken was and more about how nervous she was getting. She had been so worried about Alex and making sure she was okay that Kara hadn’t realized she had her own fears about what might happen. 

The whole time they had been preparing to tell Eliza about their relationship, the focus had been on Eliza’s likely reaction and the potential fallout between the three of them and Eliza. But the last time Eliza (sort of) found out about Kara and Alex’s relationship, the fallout hadn’t been between them and Eliza. Really it had been between Alex and Kara. 

What if Eliza disapproved again and demanded that Alex stop dating Kara? Alex had always been desperate for her mom’s approval. What if Alex thought it was more important to save her relationship with her mom than to preserve her relationship with Kara? And then if Alex and Kara couldn’t date, where would that leave her and Lena? Would Lena have to choose between them? Would Kara end up all alone again? 

As Kara’s thoughts began to spiral, she blurted out, “Uh, I… need… bathroom.” She rushed from the dining room and straight into the bathroom before anyone could respond. 

Kara leaned against the counter, gripping the counter tightly, doing her best not to grip it tightly enough to break the granite countertop. She tried splashing some water on her face, but she could still feel herself freaking out. 

The rational part of her mind was trying to calm Kara. Alex had been very clear about how much she loved Kara over the last few months, and about how much she regretted what happened with Eliza all those years ago. Even though they had never discussed it directly, logically she knew that Alex and Lena loved her and they wouldn’t leave her no matter what Eliza said, but all the logic in the world was no match for the fears and panic that were rising within her mind.

As Kara continued to spiral, she heard a soft knock at the door. “Kar, you okay in there?” Alex asked, tone quiet and soft. 

Kara’s first thought was to lie and say she was fine. It was her natural instinct to pretend she was okay, even when she wasn’t. Because if she could pretend everything was fine, then everyone else would act like everything was fine and then maybe it really would be fine eventually. She still wasn’t used to admitting when she wasn’t okay. But, just like Alex and Lena, Kara had been trying to be more honest about her feelings; to let her girlfriends know when she was struggling. 

So instead of Kara just saying she was fine and hoping that Alex would leave her alone until she could pull herself together, she admitted, “No,” in a shaky breath. 

“Can I come in?” 

Kara nodded before realizing that the other woman couldn’t see her. “Yes, please.” 

“Oh, sweetie,” Alex breathed when she entered the bathroom and saw the state Kara was in. Alex held her arms open and Kara immediately buried herself in her girlfriend’s embrace. They just held each other for a couple minutes before Alex asked, voice just barely above a whisper, “Wanna talk about it?” 

“It’s silly,” Kara admitted. 

“If it’s got you this upset, it’s not silly.” 

“It is though,” Kara insisted. “I know it is.” 

“If it’s got you upset, it’s not silly.” 

“I just… I got scared. I started thinking about what happened the first time Eliza disapproved of us being together. I got all in my head and started thinking that if she disapproved again, then you would leave me. And then Lena would end up leaving me too and I’d be all alone.” 

“Wow... you were right. That is silly.” 

“Alex!” Kara couldn’t help but laugh at her girlfriend’s response, even as she swatted her arm.

Alex leaned forward, placing a gentle kiss on Kara’s forehead. “Lena and I love you, Kar. Do I want mom to approve of our relationship? Of course I do. But nothing she could say or do is going to scare me off, or change how much I love you.”  
“I know,” Kara admitted. “It’s just once the idea got into my head, I kind of panicked.”

“I can’t tell you what’s going to happen when we tell mom; maybe she’ll surprise us and accept us when she realizes how happy we make each other. Or maybe she’ll flip out and disown us. Most likely it’ll be somewhere between those two. What I can tell you though, is no matter what happens with mom, the night is going to end with you, me and Lena cuddled up in bed together. I can’t tell you where that bed will be, but I can guarantee you that we will all be in it.” 

Kara leaned forward so that her forehead was touching Alex’s, “Thanks for helping me calm down.” 

“Anytime, babe. Seriously, Lena and I are always going to be there for you when you need us. The only reason Lena isn’t here right now too is because one of us had to keep Mom occupied.”

Kara huffed a breath and pulled herself up off the tile floor, “I think I’m ready to go back now.” 

“Might want to fix your make-up first. You kind of have a whole racoon thing going on right now.” 

Thanks to super-speed Kara was able to fix her make-up in just a few seconds and then the two women made their way back to the dining room where Lena was regaling Eliza with some of Kara’s latest superhero antics. 

When they sat back down, Lena exchanged a quick look with Kara, not pausing from her story. Kara gave the other woman a slight nod and a smile, intending to convey that everything was okay. 

A moment later, Kara felt Lena’s foot stroking her calf. Lena couldn’t just reach across the table and take Kara’s hand without Eliza asking questions and they were too far apart to be able to hold hands under the table without it being very obvious that was what they were doing. So Lena running her foot up and down Kara’s calf was the closest they could get at the moment. 

Feeling a lot more comfortable after Alex’s assurances, Kara was able to finish the last of her food and even had some room for dessert (apparently having a near panic attack was good for her appetite) so the rest of the meal passed pleasantly enough. 

When it came time for clean-up, Kara offered to handle it and Lena insisted on helping to handle cleaning any of the more breakable things (glassware and super-speed were sometimes a dangerous combination). 

Once they were safely out of eyesight, Lena gave Kara a quick hug and Kara assured her that she had freaked out a bit, but everything was okay now. Given the proximity of the kitchen to the dining room, they could only exchange a few quiet whispers, but the understanding look on Lena’s face suggested she knew exactly why Kara had panicked in the first place. 

Once they finished cleaning, Lena took Kara’s hand, threading their fingers together. “Are you ready?” 

Kara nodded. “Let’s do this.” She was still nervous, but she wasn’t scared anymore. She knew she wasn’t alone. 

A few minutes later, they had moved from the dining room to the living room, a bottle of wine Lena had brought sitting open on the coffee table. Eliza was seated in her easy chair while Kara, Lena and Alex had all opted for sitting on the couch, Kara and Lena on each end with Alex wedged between them.

Even though the original plan had been for Kara to break the news to Eliza, when it became a three-woman mission, they all decided that it would be best if Alex were the one to bring up the subject of their relationship. 

Alex had been sipping her wine, but she chugged the remainder of her glass and set it on the coffee table before saying, “Mom, we wanted to talk to you about something.” 

“What is it, dear?” 

“There’s no easy way to say this so I’m just going to say it; I’m not just dating Lena. Kara is too. And Kara and I are dating too. All three of us are together. Like romantically.”

Of all the possible reactions Kara had expected, a gentle smile was not one of them. “I know.” 

“What?” Alex gasped, the shock on her face no doubt echoing Kara’s.

“You do realize I’m Facebook friends with all three of you right? And like half your friends? And you all post a lot of photos.” 

They had indeed known that Eliza could see their Facebook photos. Which is why they had been carefully reviewing their photos before posting them to make sure that they never gave away any changes in their relationship. Kara had to ask, “You were able to figure out we were dating because of our Facebook photos?” 

“Well, that and your apartment.” 

“Our apartment?” Kara asked. Now she was really confused.  

“I figured it out when I came to National City last time,” Eliza explained. “I stayed in the guest bedroom at what was supposed to be Lena and Alex’s apartment. It didn’t take long to figure out you were living there too.” 

“Huh?” 

“Your stuff was all over the apartment, Kara. Your favorite oreos were in the cupboard, your blanket was on the back of the couch, there were three toothbrushes in the bathroom. I might have just thought it was because you were all so close and you just spent a lot of time there. I might have thought that except the only place in the entire apartment where I didn’t find anything that belonged to Kara was in the guest bedroom.” 

“Seriously?” Alex asked. “We weren’t even dating Kara last time you visited.” 

“Well, we kind of were,” Lena countered. 

“Kind of?”

Kara launched into an explanation of how they first got together, with Alex and Lena adding their own commentary and information. From their special Valentine’s dinner Kara had planned for them in Paris (the one that only Lena thought was a date), to Kara’s own realization of her feelings after overhearing her co-workers debating who she was dating, to the three of them finally sitting down and talking about their feelings.

As they told the story, Eliza asked probing questions, laughed in the right places and seemed fully supportive of their relationship. Even so, Kara could tell something was bothering Alex. It seemed like the more Eliza said supportive things about their new relationship, the quieter Alex was getting.  

Kara reached a hand over and threaded her fingers with Alex’s, an instinctive gesture. Eliza saw the movement, but didn’t say anything; she just gave them a soft smile. 

“So you’re just fine with this?” Alex barked, voice harsh and accusing. 

“Of course,” Eliza reassured. “As long as you girls are happy I’m happy.” 

“And you aren’t going to tell us we’re sick or wrong?” 

“Of course not,” Eliza looked taken aback at the accusation. 

“And you aren’t going to yell at us? Tell us we are a big disappointment? You are just going to support us?” 

Eliza furrowed her brow in confusion. “Do you not want me to support you?” 

“Yes? No? Maybe?” Alex sighed. “I don’t know. I came here all prepared to fight for our relationship. I’ve been working on my speech for weeks now.” 

“It’s true,” Kara agreed. “She has.” Alex had been rehearsing her speech over and over, getting pointers from Kara and Lena to counter any objections Eliza might have. Alex had spent every free moment working on her speech, writing everything out on cue cards until she had the speech down pat. “It’s a great speech.” 

“Well, you could give it to me anyway?” Eliza offered hesitantly. 

“It doesn’t really work if you approve of us,” Alex explained. “It’s kind of built on a lot of righteous anger and ‘how dare you’ type stuff. Hard to work up the necessary anger when you are just  sitting there smiling at us.” 

“Sweetie, I know I reacted badly when the first time you and Kara were dating.” Before Kara or Alex could respond she added, “I never bought the whole ‘practice’ excuse. You don’t cook a candlelight dinner for someone when it’s practice. I knew it was more than that and I reacted badly.

“Kara, ever since you came to Earth, I’ve seen you as a daughter. And Alex, you’ve always been my daughter. So in my mind, that meant the two of you were sisters. It never occurred to me that you might see things differently.”

“I don’t think we’ve ever been sisters,” Alex responded. “Not really.” 

“Definitely not,” Kara agreed, leaning over and kissing Alex’s temple. 

“I never should have tried to force you apart the way I did,” Eliza admitted. “It took me years to realize what I had done was wrong and by the time I had, I thought you had both moved on. You had patched things up and you were back to acting the way you had before that summer; I thought if I said anything I’d just be reopening old wounds.” 

“You kinda fucked us up,” Alex admitted. “You may have thought we were dating, but we weren’t. Or at least we hadn’t admitted it to ourselves yet. Officially I was just helping Kara learn to kiss without hurting anyone. I think we were both working up the courage to admit how we really felt that whole summer. The whole reason Kara cooked me that dinner was so she could ask me to be her girlfriend. It was the perfect night until you came in with your yelling and disapproval.”

At some point during Alex’s story, Eliza had started crying. “I’m sorry I caused you both so much pain. I know I can’t fix it. That me saying sorry doesn’t magically erase what I did, but I am so, so sorry I hurt both of you like that.” 

Alex sighed, “It wasn’t all your fault. We could have fought for each other. Instead, I got scared and ran off back to college without even saying goodbye to Kara.” 

“And I just let her go,” Kara added. “I can fly anywhere in the world in seconds. I could have followed her and told her how I felt instead just assuming Alex didn’t want me.” 

“Honestly, what you did was pretty shitty, mom. But the way I see it, if you hadn’t done what you did, I probably never would have spiraled in college. And if I hadn’t spiraled, I would never have been recruited by the DEO. Right now I’d be a doctor.”

“I might have never even became Supergirl if it wasn’t for Alex being in the DEO,” Kara pointed out. Who knows how many more years it would have taken her to work up the courage to embrace her destiny if she hadn’t needed to save Alex’s plane that night.

“And even if you had, you wouldn’t have had me around to keep you from messing things up!” Alex teased. It was true though. Kara had no doubt that if Alex had gone on to become a doctor, she would have provided just as much moral support, but she can’t imagine what it would have been like to go into the field without having Alex watching her back. 

Instead Kara laughed, not even bothering to defend herself. “She’s right. We’ll never know what might have happened if you hadn’t caught us that night. Sure, maybe we would have made things work and we’d be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. Or maybe we really weren’t ready yet and we would have messed it all up. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what might have been. What actually happened is pretty damned amazing. Especially since it lead us to Lena,” Kara turned her head as she talked, meeting Lena’s fond gaze. Kara couldn’t even begin to imagine her life without Lena in it. 

“I think that’s why this is so confusing,” Alex added. “Part of me really wants to yell at you, Mom. But I also want to thank you for what you did too? I can say for sure that I am really glad you are accepting us now; I thought there was no way that you would after what happened when we were younger. But I’m also a little disappointed that I don’t get the chance to fight for the women I love. Like I know I don’t need to prove anything to you, but I wanted to?” 

“If you think it will make you feel better, go ahead and yell at me,” Eliza responded. “I’m sorry for the pain I put you and your sister through,” Eliza paused, wincing. “Sorry, is sister still the appropriate term? Or do you prefer something else?”

“Girlfriend is good for now,” Kara answered. Even girlfriend felt inadequate for the relationship they shared, but it would have to do until Kara could work up the courage to start talking to Lena and Alex about Kryptonian bonding ceremonies. “And don’t worry about slipping up. I know it takes some getting used to.”

“When we first start dating, Kar and I would even slip up sometimes,” Alex admitted. “We used to refer to ourselves as the ‘Danvers sisters’ an awful lot.” 

Kara scrunched up her face, before laughing. “Yeah, that was weird. I’m glad we’ve gotten past that.” 

“I’ll do my best not to call you sisters,” Eliza answered, before hesitating. “Is… is it still okay for me to call you my daughter, Kara?” 

For the first time since they had started this conversation one of them got up and Kara rushed over to her foster mother. “Oh, Eliza,” she sighed, giving the older woman a tight hug. “Of course, it’s okay. Just because Alex and I have evolved our relationship doesn’t mean you still aren’t a mother to me.” Kara felt a small twinge of guilt. They had been so focused on negative reactions that they might face from Eliza that Kara hadn’t considered any other impacts their relationship might have. 

Whether it was Eliza displaying her own vulnerability or simply the fact that someone moved, Kara getting up to hug Eliza seemed to breakthrough Alex’s own reticence, and Alex came over to join the hug, forcing Eliza to stand up from her chair so the three could share in a group hug. 

Looking over Alex’s shoulder, Kara could see Lena still sitting on the couch. From her face, it was clear their girlfriend wasn’t sure if she was allowed to join in or if this was a Danvers-only hug. Kara’s hands were full, so she gestured to her girlfriend with her head, inviting her to join them. Lena raised her eyebrows in response, her way of asking if Kara was sure. Kara only laughed, “Come on, babe, get over here.” 

The group hug broke any remaining tension and the rest of the night was quite lovely. Kara, Alex and Lena shared events from the few months that they had previously had to hide or partially omit. Sister nights that had actually been date nights, the fact that Lena had surprised both of them with a romantic getaway weekend (and not just Alex), and just so many other moments, big and small, that they had thought they needed to hide. Kara was so happy for the chance to let her foster mother know just how happy Alex and Lena made her. 

Even better, Kara no longer had to worry if she was being too enthusiastic or too proud when she talked about something that Alex or Lena had done. Ever since the three of them started dating, Kara had always had to hold back with her praise, fearing that Eliza would get suspicious of just how much Kara would ramble on about her girlfriends. Now she could ramble all she wanted. And she wanted to ramble a lot! 

Later that night, Kara pushed her and Alex’s old single beds together so they could all sleep together. The bed frames were larger than the mattress so there was about a six-inch gap between the mattresses. It was a far cry from the California king they normally shared or the bed at the resort Lena had booked, but with how well the evening had gone, none of them wanted to refuse Eliza’s hospitality. 

“I have loved getting to see Midvale, but next time we visit, I’m buying you us a new bed,” Lena joked as the three women tried to arrange themselves on the makeshift bed. Between the gap and the lack of space, it was a challenge. 

“Hold on,” Kara says before floating a couple feet off the bed. “Better?” 

“But now we can’t cuddle,” Lena huffed, face scrunched up in an adorable pout. 

In the end, they decided to move all their pillows and blankets on to the floor, grabbing some extra blankets from the linen closet to give the carpet a bit more padding. It wasn’t nearly as soft as sleeping on an actual bed, but it meant they could all cuddle together.

“You realize the two of you are going to be super sore in the morning, right?” Kara asked as she curled up beside Lena, sliding a hand under her neck so she could intertwine her fingers with one Alex’s. 

“I’ve slept on worse,” Alex shrugged.  

“I don’t think I have. Even the prison cots were softer than this,” Lena laughed. “But it’s totally worth it,” she added, rolling on her side so she could curl into Kara. 

“How are you doing, Lena?” Alex asked, voice soft. “I know tonight was mostly about Kara and I.” 

“I don’t mind. I know how much you needed to talk to your mom. I’m just glad I could be here for moral support. And that it turned out so well.” 

Kara knew Lena knew what she was about to say even before she said it, but she felt compelled to say it anyway. “We just want to make sure you know how much we love you.” 

“I know, darling,” Lena sighed happily. “Is that why I get to be the middle spoon tonight?” 

Alex ran an arm over Lena’s side, snuggling into her girlfriend’s back. “You looked after us all day; we just want to make sure you know how much we appreciate it.” 

“Well, you know if you really want to make me feel appreciated...” Lena teased, arching an eyebrow. 

“Yeah, that’s not happening,” Alex laughed. “My mom’s room is just down the hall, and neither of you are exactly good at keeping quiet.” 

“Fine,” Lena sighed in mock exasperation. “I suppose I can wait until tomorrow for the two of you to ravage me. You’re just lucky I love you!” 

“We love you too,” Kara answered, rolling over and kissing her girlfriend. 

“Don’t I get a goodnight kiss?” Alex pouted. 

Kara chuckled and crawled over to Alex to give her a goodnight kiss before Lena turned around to do the same. With all the maneuvering around on the floor to reposition for kisses, they ended up flipped so that Alex was the little spoon being cuddled by Lena while Kara was the big spoon, cuddling Lena. 

As Kara lay curled up on the floor of her old bedroom, listening to her girlfriends hushed whispers, she couldn’t help but thank Rao for how great her life was. She had great friends, great family and the two most amazing women in the entire multiverse were just in love with her as she was with them. Life was good. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled with how to handle the discussion with Eliza. There were multiple versions written. Eliza reacted poorly in the first version (but would have come around in time for Thanksgiving). Then there was a version where it was all smooth sailing. I realized though that even if Eliza was supportive, it was important for Alex to have a chance to confront her mother for all the harm she caused when they were younger. Hope this version works for you!
> 
> I called this an epilogue of sorts as I'm not necessarily done with this story. I have some ideas for some possible follow-ups (whether that would be an added chapter or turning this into a full series, I'm not sure). I have a bunch of other projects in the works right now though so if I do decide to follow-up on this, it probably won't be until sometime in 2020.


End file.
